For several seconds after Mr. Carwell fell so heavily on the putting green, having completed the last stroke that sent the white ball into the cup and made him club champion, there was not a stir among the other players grouped about him; nor did the gallery, grouped some distance back, rush up. The most natural thought, and one that was in the minds of the majority, was that the clubman had overbalanced himself in making his stance for the putt shot, and had fallen. There was even a little thoughtless laughter from some in the gallery. But it was almost instantly hushed, for it needed but a second glance to tell that something more serious than a simple fall had occurred.
Or if it was a fall caused by an unsteady position, taken when he made his last shot, it had been such a heavy one that Mr. Carwell was overlong in recovering from it. He remained in a huddled heap on the short-cropped, velvety turf of the putting green.
Then the murmurs of wonder came, surging from many throats, and the friends of Mr. Carwell closed around to help him to his feet-to render what aid was needed. Among them were Captain Poland and Harry Bartlett, and as the latter stepped forward he glanced up, for an instant, at the blue sky.
Far above the Maraposa golf links circled a lone osprey on its way to the inlet or ocean. Rather idly Bartlett wondered if it was the same one he and Captain Poland had seen dart down and kill the fish just before the beginning of the big match.
“What's the matter, Horace? Sun too much for you?” asked Major Wardell, as he leaned over his friend and rival. “It is a bit hot; I feel it myself. But I didn't think it would knock you out. Or are you done up because you beat me? Come—”
He ceased his rather railing talk, and a look came over his face that told those near him something serious had happened. There was a rush toward the prostrate man.
“Keep back, please!” exclaimed the major. “He seems to have fainted. He needs air. Is Dr. Rowland here? I thought I saw him at the clubhouse a while ago. Some one get him, please. If not—”
“I'll get him!” some one offered
“Here, give him a sip of this—it's brandy!” and an automobilist, who had come across the links from the nearest point to the highway, offered his flask.
The major unscrewed the silver top, which formed a tiny cup, and tried to let some of the potent liquor trickle between the purplish lips of the unconscious victor in the cup-winners' match. But more of the liquid was spilled on his face and neck than went into his mouth. The air reeked with the odor of it.
“What has happened? Is he hurt?” gasped Viola, who made her way through the press of people, which opened for her, till she stood close beside her father. “What is it? Oh, is he—?”
“He fell,” some one said.
“Just as he made his winning stroke,” added another.
“Oh!” and Viola herself reeled unsteadily.
“It's all right,” a voice said in her ear, and though it was in the ordinary tones of Captain Poland, to the alarmed girl it seemed as though it came from the distant peaks of the hills. “He'll be all right presently,” went on the captain, as he supported Viola and led her out of the throng.
“It's just a touch of the sun, I fancy. They've gone for a doctor.”
“Oh, but, Captain Poland—father was never like this before—he was always so strong and well—I never knew him to complain of the heat. And as for fainting—why I believe I almost did it myself, just now, didn't I?”
“Almost, yes.”
“But father never did. Oh, I must go to him!”
She struggled a little and moved away from his half encircling arm, for he had seen that her strength was failing her and had supported her as he led her away. “I must go to him!”
“Better not just now,” said Captain Poland gently. “Harry is there with him, the major and other friends. They will look after him. You had better come with me to the clubhouse and lie down. I will get you a cup of tea.”
“No! I must be with my father!” she insisted. “He will need me when he—when he revives. Please let me go to him!”
The captain saw that it was of little use to oppose her so he led her back toward the throng that was still about the prostrate player. A clubman was hurrying back with a young man who carried a small black bag.
“They've got a doctor, I think,” said Gerry. “Not Dr. Rowland, though. However, I dare say it will be all right.”
A fit of trembling seized Viola, and it was so violent that, for a moment, Captain Poland thought she would fall. He had to hold her close, and he wished there was some place near at hand to which he might take her. But the clubhouse was some distance away, and there were no conveyances within call.
However, Viola soon recovered her composure, or at least seemed to, and smiled up at him, though there was no mirth in it.
“I'll be all right now,” she said. “Please take me to him. He will ask for me as soon as he recovers.”
The young doctor had made his way through the throng and now knelt beside the prostrate man. The examination was brief—a raising of the eyelids, an ear pressed over the heart, supplemented by the use of the stethoscope, and then the young medical man looked up, searching the ring of faces about him as though seeking for some one in authority to whom information might be imparted. Then he announced, generally:
“He is dead.”
“Dead!” exclaimed several.
“Hush!” cautioned Harry Bartlett “She'll hear you!”
He looked in the direction whence Viola and Captain Poland were approaching the scene.
“Are you sure, Dr. Baird?” he asked.
“Positive. The heart action has entirely stopped.”
“But might that not be from some cause—some temporary cause?”
“Yes, but not in this case. Mr. Carwell is dead. I can do nothing for him.”
It sounded brutal, but it was only a medical man's plain statement of the case.
“Some one must tell her,” murmured Minnie Webb, who had been attracted to the crowd, though she was not much of a golf enthusiast. “Poor Viola! Some one must tell her.”
“I will,” offered Bartlett, and he made his way through a living lane that opened for him. Then it closed again, hiding the body from sight. Some one placed a sweater over the face that had been so ruddy, and was now so pale.
Captain Poland, still supporting Viola on his arm, saw Bartlett approaching. Somehow he surmised what his fellow clubman was going to say.
“Oh, Harry!” exclaimed Viola, impulsively holding out her hands to him. “Is he all right? Is he better?”
“I am sorry,” began Harry, and then she seemed to sense what he was going to add.
“He isn't—Oh, don't tell me he is—”
“The doctor says he is dead, Viola,” answered Bartlett gently. “He passed away without pain or suffering. It must have been heart disease.”
But Viola Carwell never heard the last words, for she really fainted this time, and Captain Poland laid her gently down on the soft, green grass.
“Better get the doctor for her,” he advised Bartlett. “She'll need him, if her father doesn't.” As Harry Bartlett turned aside, waving back the curiosity seekers that were already leaving the former scene of excitement for the latest, LeGrand Blossom came up. He seemed very cool and not at all excited, considering what had happened.
“I will look after Miss Carwell,” he said.
“Perhaps you had better see to Mr. Carwell—Mr. Carwell's remains, Blossom,” suggested Captain Poland. “Miss Carwell will be herself very soon. She has only fainted. Her father is dead.
“Dead? Are you sure?” asked LeGrand Blossom, and his manner seemed a trifle more naturally excited.
“Dr. Baird says so. You'd better go to him. He may want to ask some questions, and you were more closely associated with Carwell than any of the rest of us.”
“Very well, I'll look after the body,” said the secretary. “Did the doctor say what killed him?”
“No. That will be gone into later, I dare say. Probably heart disease; though I never knew he had it,” said Bartlett.
“Nor I,” added Blossom. “I'd be more inclined to suspect apoplexy. But are you sure Miss Carwell will be all right?”
“Yes,” answered Captain Poland, who had raised her head after sprinkling in her face some water a caddy brought in his cap. “She is reviving.”
Dr. Baird came up just then and gave her some aromatic spirits of ammonia.
Viola opened her eyes. There was no comprehension in them, and she looked about in wonder. Then, as her benumbed brain again took up its work, she exclaimed:
“Oh, it isn't true! It can't be true! Tell me it isn't!”
“I am sorry, but it seems to be but too true,” said Captain Poland gently. “Did he ever speak of trouble with his heart, Viola?”
“Never, Gerry. He was always so well and strong.”
“You had better come to the clubhouse,” suggested Bartlett, and she went with them both.
A little later the body of Horace Carwell was carried to the “nineteenth hole”—that place where all games are played over again in detail as the contestants put away their clubs.
A throng followed the silent figure, borne on the shoulders of some grounds workmen, but only club members were admitted to the house. And among them buzzed talk of the tragedy that had so suddenly ended the day of sports.
“He looked all right when he started to play,” said one. “Never saw him in better form, and some of his shots were marvelous.”
“He'd been drinking a little too much for a man to play his best, especially on a hot day,” ventured another. “He must have been taken ill from that, and the excitement of trying to win over the major, and it affected his heart.”
“Never knew him to have heart disease,” declared Bruce Garrigan.
“Lots of us have it and don't know it,” commented Tom Sharwell. “I suppose it will take an autopsy to decide.”
“Rather tough on Miss Carwell,” was another comment.
“That's true!” several agreed.
The body of Horace Carwell was placed in one of the small card rooms, and the door locked. Then followed some quick telephoning on the part of Dr. Baird, who had recently joined the golf club, and who had arrived at the clubhouse shortly before Mr. Carwell dropped dead.
It was at the suggestion of Harry Bartlett that Dr. Addison Lambert, the Carwell family physician, was sent for, and that rather aged practitioner arrived as soon as possible.
He was taken in to view the body, together with Dr. Baird, who was almost pathetically deferential to his senior colleague. The two medical men were together in the room with the body for some time, and when they came out Viola Carwell was there to meet them. Dr. Lambert put his arms about her. He had known her all her life—since she first ventured into this world, in fact—and his manner was most fatherly.
“Oh, Uncle Add!” she murmured to him—for she had long called him by this endearing title—Oh, Uncle Add! What is it? Is my father—is he really—”
“My dear little girl, your father is dead, I am sorry to say. You must be very brave, and bear up. Be the brave woman he would want you to be.”
“I will, Uncle Add. But, oh, it is so hard! He was all I had! Oh, what made him die?”
She questioned almost as a little child might have done.
“That I don't know, my dear,” answered Dr. Lambert gently. “We shall have to find that out later by—Well, we'll find out later, Dr. Baird and I. You had better go home now. I'll have your car brought around. Is that—that Frenchman here—your chauffeur?”
“Yes, he was here a little while ago. But I had rather not go home with him—at least, unless some one else comes with me. I don't like—I don't like that big, new car.
“If you will come with me, Viola—” began Bartlett.
“Yes, Harry, I'll go with you. Oh, poor Aunt Mary! This will be a terrible shock to her. I—”
“I'll telephone,” offered Dr. Lambert. “She'll know when you arrive. And I'll be over to see you, Viola, as soon as I make some arrangements.”
“And will you look after—after poor father?”
“Yes, you may leave it all to me.”
And so, while the body of the dead clubman remained at the nineteenth hole, Viola Carwell was taken to 'The Haven' by Harry Bartlett, while Captain Poland, nodding farewell to LeGrand Blossom and some of his other friends, left the grounds in his gray car.
And as he rode down past the inlet where the tide was now running out to the sea, he saw an osprey dart down and strike at an unseen fish.
But the bird rose with dripping pinions, its talons empty.
“You didn't get any one that time!” murmured the captain.
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