The Gold Skull Murders

The clock in the bungalow’s living room struck two. Ronald Ward tossed restlessly in his bed. He had turned in at midnight with a tepid gin and tonic for a nightcap—and had heard the clock strike the hours and the half hours ever since. But it wasn’t the nightcap that had kept him awake: it was the heat.It was hot, insufferably hot. Taletee, lone isle, was always hot, but to-night it was like an inferno. Every door and window in the bungalow was wide open, and there was a night breeze—but it was from landward, coming across the island. It brought no relief; rather, it seemed to gather up from the soil all the heat of the day, and, heavy with odor from the copra sheds, which were in its path, became only a thing of added and sticky discomfort.Apart from the striking of the clock, which was intermittent, there was another sound that was definitely and irritably continuous—and the thin, tropical partitions, like so many sounding-boards, accentuated it. In his room on the other side of the living room, Gourlay, the plantation manager, was snoring with vigor and determination.