Asta Everson was a unique type of girl.  She had begun by running fast motor cars and boats.  That had not satisfied her, and she had taken up aviation.  Once, even, she had tried deep-sea diving herself.  It seemed as if she had been born with the spirit of adventure.

To win her, Everson had done about everything from Arctic exploration one summer when he was in college to big-game hunting in Africa, and mountain-climbing in the Andes.  Odd though the romance might seem to be, one could not help feeling that the young couple were splendidly matched in their tastes.  Each had that spirit of restlessness which, at least, sent them out playing at pioneering.

Everson had organized the expedition quite as much in the spirit of revolt against a prosaic life of society at home as for gain.  It had appealed strongly to Asta.  She had insisted that nothing so much as a treasure hunt would be appropriate for their wedding-trip and they had agreed on the unconventional.  Accordingly, she and her sister had joined Everson and his party, Norma, though a year younger, being quite like her sister in her taste for excitement.

“Of course, you understand,” explained Everson, as he hurriedly tried to give us some idea of what had happened, “we knew that the Antilles had sunk somewhere off the Cay d’Or.  It was first a question of locating her.  That was all that we had been doing when Bertram died.  It is terrible, terrible.  I can’t believe it.  I can’t understand it.”

In spite of his iron nerve, the tragedy seemed to have shaken Everson profoundly.

“You had done nothing that might have been dangerous?” asked Kennedy, pointedly.

“Nothing,” emphasized Everson.  “You see, we located the wreck in a way somewhat similar to the manner in which they sweep the seas for mines and submarines.  It was really very simple, though it took us some time.  All we did was to drag a wire at a fixed depth between the yacht and the tug, or rather, I suppose you’d almost call it a trawler, which I chartered from Havana.  What we were looking for was to have the wire catch on some obstruction.  It did, too, not once, but many times, due to the unevenness of the ocean bed.  Once we located a wreck, but it was in shallow water, a small boat, not the one we were looking for.”

“But you succeeded finally?”

“Yes, only day before yesterday we located her.  We marked the spot with a buoy and were getting ready for real work.  It was just after that that Bertram was taken ill and died so suddenly.  We’ve left Dominick, Kinsale, Gage, and the rest on the trawler there, while I came here with Traynor’s body.  God! but it was awful to have to send the news back to New York.  I don’t know what to think or what to do.”

“How did he die?” asked Kennedy, endeavoring to gain the confidence of young Everson.  “Do you recall any of his symptoms?”