CHAPTER VIII
WHERE IS NOGI?
Twenty-four hours later Cray, the District Prosecuting Attorney, stood in the Waring study.
The body of the master had been removed, and to Cray’s regret he had not seen it before the embalmer’s work had removed the red ring on the forehead.
“It was a sign,” he said to Morton, who was moodily listening. “A sign like that, left by the murderer, always means revenge.”
“You agree to murder, then?” Morton spoke eagerly, glad to have his theory corroborated.
“What else? Look here, Morton; it’s got to be either murder or suicide, hasn’t it? Yes? Well, then, to which of the two do the greater number of clues point? Sum up. For suicide we have only the locked room argument. I admit I don’t know how any one could get in or out of this study, but, as I say, that’s the only sign of suicide. Now, for murder we have the absence of the weapon, the robbery of the money and the ruby, and sign of a circle on the dead man’s forehead. Wish I’d seen that. It wasn’t burnt on, for it disappeared after the embalmers took care of it.”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t as deep as a burn. More like an impression left by a ring of cold metal or the edge of a glass tumbler.”
“Very strange, and decidedly an important clue. For, here’s the queer part. The doctors declare the mark must have been made while the man was alive – now, how can that be explained?”
“Give it up. It’s too much for me. But it was too small a circle to have been made by the tumbler on the water tray. I measured it.”
“I know; that’s why I think it was a sign of revenge. Suppose the motive was revenge and the reason for revenge had something to do with a quarrel in which a small glass or cup figured. That’s the idea, though, of course, it needn’t have been a glass or cup at all, but something with a ring-like edge. Thus, there was a reason for the sign on the dead man’s face.”
“I see; though I never could have doped it out like that.”
“Oh, I don’t say it’s exactly what happened, but there must have been something of the sort, for what other hypothesis fits the case at all? We can’t imagine Doctor Waring branding his own forehead, and then killing himself, can we?”
“No; and if he had, where’s the branding iron – to call it that – and where’s the dagger?”
“That’s right. Now, I propose to treat the matter as a murder case, and look for the criminal first, and then find out how he entered the locked room afterward.”
“Pooh! those locked rooms – ”
“You’re ’way off, Morton, when you sneer at a ‘locked room.’”
“It was locked – I mean impenetrably locked. There is no secret passage – of that I’m sure. Your ingenious idea of removing and replacing a whole pane of glass was clever, I grant, but we’ve seen that not a pane has been lately reputtied. They’re all framed in old, dried, hard, and even painted putty.”
“I know it. But some other such way might have been devised.”
“Can’t think of any. We’ve examined all the window sashes and door frame – oh, well, so far as I can see the room was absolutely unenterable. But, notwithstanding, I’m going to work on a murder basis. Because inexplicable as that seems, there are even more insurmountable difficulties in the way of the suicide theory. Now, I suppose you’ve had the finger print expert in?”
“No – I haven’t – not yet.”
“Good Lord! What kind of a detective are you? Well, get him, and put him to work. What about footprints?”
“Inside the room?”
“Or outside, either. But inside, I suppose has been trampled by a score of people!”
“You can’t get footprints on a thick rug,” the discomfited Morton grumbled.
“Sometimes you can. And a polished floor will often show marks. What have you done, anyway?”
“There was enough to do, Mr. Cray,” Morton flared back at him. “I have been busy every minute since I began, except for a few hours sleep.”
“Over twenty-four hours since the alarm was given. You’ve put in at least twelve, then. What have you done?”
“A lot. I’ve found out, to my own satisfaction, that – if it is a murder – Gordon Lockwood knows all about it.”
“You suspect him?”
“Either of the deed, or of guilty knowledge.”
“And his motive?”
“Money. That young man is over head and ears in debt.”
“To whom?”
“To shops – jewelers, florists, restaurants. All the debts a gay young blade would incur.”
“You amaze me, Morton. Lockwood isn’t that sort.”
“Isn’t he? You’re deceived, like every one else, by that icy calm of his. He stares haughtily, and appears above and beyond ordinary mortals, but he’s deep. That’s what he is, deep.”
“Well, how did he do it?”
“With his penholder. A smooth, sharp silver penholder. And he took the money and the ruby.”
“And how did he leave the room?”
“Don’t ask me that! That’s his secret. But, I’ve a notion he was in cahoots with that new Jap, the one that vamoosed. I theorize,” Morton waxed important as he noted the Prosecutor’s attention, “that the Jap had some grudge against Waring, and it was he who branded his forehead, and who contrived a way to leave the room locked behind him. Why, I read a story the other day, where a key was turned from the other side of a door by means of a slender steel bar through the key handle, and a string from the bar, leading down and under the door. Once outside, the murderer pulled the string, the bar turned the key in the lock, the bar fell to the floor and he dragged it under the door by means of the string.”
“Ingenious! but it implies a door raised from the floor.”
“I know. And this one isn’t. But it all goes to prove that there can be some way – some diabolically clever way to do the trick. And the Japanese are diabolically clever. And so is Lockwood. And if the two worked together they could accomplish wonders. Then Lockwood with his wooden face, could disarm suspicion. The Jap, let us say, couldn’t, so Lockwood packed him off.”
“Interesting – but all theory.”
“To be proved or disproved, then.”
“Yes, but meantime, you are losing time on more practical investigation. Let’s look outside for footprints – I mean for any one coming or going from this side entrance.”
“The French window? Nobody comes or goes that way in this weather; the path isn’t even shoveled. That’s used mostly in summer time.”
“Nevertheless,” Cray opened the window door, “somebody has been here.”
Morton looked out and stared hard. How had he come to neglect a matter of such importance. There were two plainly visible lines of footprints in the snow, one quite obviously coming toward the house and one going away from it.
“There’s your murderer,” said Cray, quietly.
“Oh, no,” but Morton wriggled uneasily. “It couldn’t be. No murderer is going to walk through crusted snow, to and from the scene of his crime, leaving definite footprints like those!”
“That’s no argument. He might have come here with no intent of crime, and afterward, might have been so beside himself he couldn’t plan safely.”
“Oh, well, get what you can from them,” said Morton, pettishly. “I suppose you deduce a tall man, with blue eyes and two teeth missing.”
“Don’t be cheap, Morton. And, on the contrary, I deduce a small man. They are small footprints, and close together. The Japanese are small men, Morton.”
“Well, these prints are more than twenty-four hours old, and they’re not clear enough to incriminate anybody.”
“They haven’t changed an iota from the moment they were made. This cold snap has kept everything frozen solid. Look at the frost still on the panes, the icicles still on the window sashes, the ice coating still on all the trees and branches. In fact it has grown steadily colder since night before last, and until it begins to thaw we have these footprints as intact evidence. I will have them photographed.”
“They are small,” Morton agreed after further examination. “And as you say, too close together for an ordinary sized man. It looks like the Jap.”
“Beginning to wake up, are you? You’ve sure been asleep at the switch, Morton.”
“Nothing of the sort, Mr. Cray. But I ought to have help. I’ve had all I could tackle, making the necessary first inquiries, and getting the facts straightened out.”
“That business could have waited better than these other things. Now, there’s Crimmins, the lawyer arriving. Let’s interview him. But not in the study. Keep that clear.”
They met Crimmins in the hall, and took him to the living room.
The matter of the will was immediately taken up, and Mrs. Bates was asked to tell which desk drawer it was in.
Accompanied by the lawyer and the secretary, Mrs. Bates indicated the drawer, and Lockwood opened it with his key.
There were a few papers in it but no will.
Nor could further search disclose any such document.
“Who took it?” said Mrs. Bates, blankly.
But no one could answer her. The others came thronging in, Cray’s urgent requests to keep out of the study being entirely ignored.
“I knew it,” declared Mrs. Peyton, triumphantly. “Now, I guess you won’t be so cocky, Emily Bates – you or your ‘authority!’”
Mrs. Bates looked at her. “I am the heir,” she said haughtily. “I assert that – but I cannot prove it until the will is found. It isn’t in your possession, Mr. Crimmins?”
“No; Doctor Waring preferred to keep it himself. I cannot understand its disappearance.”
“A lot of paper has been burned in this fireplace,” said Helen Peyton who was poking the ashes around.
Morton hastened to look, for it seemed to him as if everybody was stealing his thunder.
“Nothing that can be identified,” he said, carelessly.
“No?” demurred Cray. “At any rate, it looks as if some legal papers were destroyed. This bit of ash is quite evidently the remainder of several sheets folded together.”
But no definite knowledge could be gained outside the fact that much paper had been burned there. As no fire had been made since the discovery of the tragedy, it stood to reason the papers were burned by Doctor Waring himself or by his midnight intruder, if there were such a one.
“Well,” Cray demanded of the lawyer, “if no will can be found, then who inherits the property of Doctor Waring? And is it considerable?”
“Yes; Doctor Waring had quite a fortune,” Crimmins told them. “As to an heir, he has a distant cousin – a second cousin, who, I suppose would be the legal inheritor, in the absence of any will. But, I know he made a will in Mrs. Bates’ favor, and it included a few minor legacies to the members of this household and some neighbors.”
“I know it,” Mrs. Bates said. “I’m perfectly familiar with all the bequests. But where is the will? It must be found! It can’t have been burnt!”
“We’ve no right to assume that those paper ashes are the will, but I confess I fear it,” Crimmins announced, his face drawn with anxiety. “I should be deeply sorry, if it is so, for the cousin I speak of is a ne’er do well young man, and not at all a favorite of his late relative. His name is Maurice Trask and he lives in St. Louis. I suppose he must be notified in any case.”
“Yes,” said Cray, “that must be done. But, please, all go out of this room, for the finger print experts and the photographers are coming soon, and every moment you people stay here, you help to cloud or destroy possible clues.”
Impressed by his sternness, they filed out and gathered in the living-room.
There they found a neighbor, Saltonstall Adams, awaiting them.
“I came over,” he said, with scant preliminary greetings, “because I have something to tell. You in charge, Mr. Cray?”
“Yes, Salt, what do you know?”
“This. I was awake late, night before last – the night Doc Waring died, and I was looking out my window, and it was pretty light, with the snow and the moonlight and all, and I saw a man – a small man, creeping along sly like. And I watched him, he went along past my house down toward the railroad tracks. He had a bag with him, and a bundle beside. I wouldn’t have noticed him probably, but he skulked along so and seemed so fearful that somebody’d see him.”
“Nogi?” said Gordon Lockwood, calmly, looking at the speaker.
“Don’t say it was, and don’t say it wasn’t. But I went down to the station and the station master told me that that Jap of Waring’s went off on the milk train.”
“He did!” cried Morton, “what time does that train go through?”
“’Bout half past four. The fellow passed my house ’long about half past twelve, I should say – though I didn’t look, and he must have waited around the station all that time till the milk train came along.”
“Is the station master sure it was Nogi?” asked Mrs. Peyton, greatly excited.
“Said he was, and there’s mighty few Japs in Corinth, all told.”
“Of course it was Nogi,” said Lockwood, and Morton snapped him up with, “Why are you so sure?”
Lockwood treated the detective to one of his most disconcerting stares, and said,
“You, a detective, and ask such a simple question! Why, since there are but a very few Japanese in this town, and since one of them left on that milk train, and since all the rest are accounted for, and only Nogi is missing – it doesn’t seem to me to require superhuman intelligence to infer that it was Nogi who took his departure.”
“And who was mixed up in the murder of Doctor John Waring?” cried Morton, exasperated beyond all caution by the ironic tone of Lockwood. “And, unless you can explain some matters, sir, you may be considered mixed in the same despicable deed!”
“What matters?” Gordon Lockwood asked, but his already pale face turned a shade whiter.
“First, sir, you have a large number of unpaid bills in your possession.”
The secretary’s face was no longer white. The angry blood flew to it, and he fairly clenched his hands in an effort to preserve his usual calm, nor even then, could he entirely succeed.
“What if I have?” he cried, “and how do you know? You’ve searched my rooms!”
“Certainly,” said Morton, “I warned you I should do so.”
“But, in my absence!”
“The law is not always over ceremonious.”
“Now, Mr. Lockwood,” Cray began, “don’t get excited.”
Gordon Lockwood almost laughed. For him to be told not to get excited! He, who never allowed himself to be even slightly ruffled or perturbed! This would never do!
“I’m not excited, Mr. Cray,” he said, and he wasn’t, now, “but I am annoyed that my private papers should be searched without my knowledge. Surely I might – ”
“Never mind the amenities of life, Mr. Lockwood,” Cray went on; “your effects were searched on the authority of a police warrant. Now, regarding these bills – ”
“I have nothing to say. A man has a right to his unpaid bills.”
“But he has not a right to steal five hundred dollars in cash and a ruby pin, in order to be able to pay them!” This from Morton, and instead of replying to the detective in any way, Lockwood ignored the speech utterly, quite as if he had not heard it, and addressed Cray.
“Was anything further found to incriminate me?” he asked.
“Was there anything else to be found?” said Cray, catching at the implied suggestion.
“That’s for your sleuths to say. I know of nothing.”
“Well, there’s your round, sharp penholder. And the fact that you had keys to all desk drawers. Also the fact that only you and the Jap are known to have been in that part of the house that night. These things were not learned from the search of your rooms; but your pecuniary embarrassment, which was discovered, all go together to make a web of circumstances that call for investigation.”
“Don’t beat about the bush!” exclaimed Lockwood, his lips set, and his eyes staring coldly at the District Attorney. “I’d far rather be accused definitely than have it hinted that I am responsible for this crime.”
“But we haven’t sufficient evidence, Mr. Lockwood, to accuse you definitely, that’s why we must question you.”
“Sufficient! You haven’t any evidence at all!”
“Oh, we have some.” With a turn of his head, Cray summoned a man who stood at the hall door.
The man came in, and handed Cray a report.
“H’m,” the attorney scanned the paper. “We find, Mr. Lockwood, fresh finger prints on the chair which stood near Doctor Waring’s desk. Facing the Doctor’s chair, in fact, as if some one had sat there talking to him. Did you?”
“No; I never sat down and talked to him. I was always waiting on him in the matter of bringing books or taking letters for transcription, and in any case, I either stood, or sat at my desk, never in that chair you speak of.”
“This man will take the finger prints of all present,” the Attorney directed, and one and all submitted to the process.
Old Salt Adams was greatly interested.
“But you can’t get the prints of Friend Jap,” he said. “Like’s not, he’d be of more importance than all of us put together. Me, now, I can’t see where I come in.”
Yet, after time enough had passed to complete the processes, it was learned that the finger prints on the shiny black wood of the chair under discussion were indubitably those of Gordon Lockwood. Also, there were other prints there, slightly smaller, that Cray immediately assumed to be those of the missing Japanese.
Lockwood looked more supercilious than usual, if that were possible.
“How can you identify the prints of a man not here?” he asked with an incredulous look.
“Supposition not identification,” said Cray, gravely. “But we’re narrowing these things down, and we may yet get identification.”
“Get the Jap back,” advised Old Salt Adams. “That’s your next move, Cray. Get him, check up his finger prints and all that, and best of all get his confession. There’s your work cut out for you.”
“Find Doctor Waring’s will,” Mrs. Bates lamented. “There’s your work cut out for you. I am not unduly mercenary, but when I know how anxious Doctor Waring was that I should inherit his estate, when I realize what it meant that he drew this will before our marriage, so urgent was his desire that all should be mine, you must understand that I do not willingly forego it all in favor of a distant relative, whom, Mr. Crimmins tells us, Doctor Waring did not care for at all.”
“I should say not!” and Crimmins looked positive. “It will be an outrage if Mr. Trask inherits the estate already willed to Mrs. Bates. I stand ready to do all I can to see justice done in this matter.”
“But justice, as you see it, can only result from finding the will,” said Cray.
“Yes,” agreed Crimmins, “and the whole matter opens up a new train of thought. May not the distant cousin, this man Trask be in some way responsible for the destruction of the will and the death of the decedent?”
“It is a new way to look,” Cray agreed, with a thoughtful air; “and we will look that way, you rest assured. We will at once get in touch with this cousin, you will give us his address, and learn where he was and how employed on the night of Doctor Waring’s death. We still have to face the problem of an outsider’s exit from a locked room, and though it seems more explicable in the case of a member of the household, yet a new suspect brings fresh conditions, and perhaps fresh evidence, which may show us where to look. At any rate, we must speedily find Mr. Maurice Trask.”
CHAPTER IX
A LOVE LETTER
“Look here, Esther,” said old Salt to his wife, “that’s a mighty curious case over at Waring’s.”
“How you do talk! I should think that to you and me, knowing and loving John Waring as we did, you’d have no doings with the curious part of it! As for me, I don’t care who killed him. He’s dead, isn’t he? It can’t bring him back to life to hang his murderer. And to my mind it’s heathenish – all this detectiving and evidencing – or whatever they call it. Whom do they suspect now? You?”
Adams looked at his wife with a mild reproach. “Woman all over! No sense of justice, no righteous indignation. Don’t you know the murderer must be found and punished? That is if it was a murder.”
“Of course it was! That blessed man never killed himself! And he about to marry Emily Bates – a lady, if ever there was one!”
“Well, now you listen to me, Esther, and whatever you do, don’t go babbling about this. They say the Jap, who vamoosed from the Waring house, made a line of foot tracks in the snow. The snow’s crusted over, you know, and those footprints are about as clear now as when they were made.”
“Huh! footprints! Corinth is full of footprints.”
“Yes, but these – listen, Esther – these lead straight from the Waring house, over to this house. And back again.”
“How can they?” Mrs. Adams looked mystified. “That Japanese didn’t come over here.”
“You can’t say that he didn’t. And, look here, Esther, where’s Miss Austin? What’s she doing?”
“Miss Austin? She’s in her room. She hasn’t been quite up to the mark for a day or two, and she’s had her meals upstairs.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“A slight cold, she says. I can’t make her out, Salt. What’s she doing here, anyway?”
“Don’t pester her, my dear. How you and Bascom do love to pick at that girl! Why does she have to do anything?”
“It’s queer, though. And I hate a mystery.”
“Well, she is one – I grant you that. Have you told her about Doctor Waring? Though I daresay it wouldn’t interest her.”
“And I daresay it would! Why, that girl cut his picture out of the paper, and she did have one stuck up on her dresser, till I looked at it sort of sharp like, and she put it away.”
“Poor child! Can’t even have a newspaper cutting, if she wants it! You’re a tyrant, Esther! Don’t you ever try to boss me like that!”
The good-natured smile that passed between them, proved the unlikelihood of this, and Old Salt went on. “I wish you’d tell her, wife, about the tragedy. Seems like she ought to know.”
Mrs. Adams stared at him. “I’ll tell her, as a matter of course, but I don’t know why you’re so anxious about it.”
“Good morning, Miss Austin,” the good lady said, soon after, “better this morning?”
“Yes, thank you. My cold is almost entirely well.”
The girl was sitting by the window, in an easy chair. She had on a Japanese dressing gown of quilted silk, embroidered with chrysanthemums, and was listlessly gazing out across the snow covered field opposite.
The Adams house was on the outskirts of the little town, and separated by a wide field from the Waring place.
“Heard the news about Doctor Waring?” Mrs. Adams said, in a casual tone, but watching the girl closely.
“No; what is it?”
The words were simple, and the voice steady, but Miss Austin’s hands clutched the arms of the chair, and her face turned perfectly white.
“Why, what ails you? You don’t know the man, do you?”
“I – I heard him lecture, you know. Tell me – what is the – the news?”
“He’s dead.” Mrs. Adams spoke bluntly on purpose. She had felt in a vague way, that this strange person, this Miss Mystery, had more interest in Doctor Waring than she admitted, and the landlady was determined to find out.
To her own satisfaction she did find out, for the girl almost fainted. She didn’t quite lose consciousness, indeed it was not so much a faint as such a desperate effort to regain her poise, that it unnerved her.
“Now, now, Miss Austin, why do you take it so hard? He was a stranger to you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes – yes, of course he was.”
“Why are you so disturbed then?”
“He was such a – such a fine man – ” the girl’s stifled sobs impeded her speech.
“Well, somebody killed him.”
At that, Miss Austin seemed turned to stone. “Killed him!” she whispered, in accent of terror.
“Yes – or else he killed himself – they don’t feel sure.” Mrs. Adams, once embarked on the narrative, told all she knew of the circumstances, and in the exciting recital, almost forgot to watch the effect of the tale on her listener.
But this effect was not entirely unnoted. At the partly open door, Old Salt Adams, stood, eavesdropping, but with a kindly, anxious look on his face, that boded no ill to any one.
And he noticed that the girl’s attention was wandering. She was pitifully white, her face drawn and scared, and soon she exclaimed, with a burst of nervous fury, “Stop! please stop! Leave the room, won’t you?”
It was not a command but an agonized entreaty. Mrs. Adams fairly jumped, and alarmed as well as offended, she rose and started for the door, only to meet her husband entering.
“Go downstairs, Esther,” he said, gravely, “I want to speak to Miss Austin myself.”
Staring at one then at the other, and utterly routed by this unbelievable turn of affairs, Mrs. Adams went.
Old Salt closed the room door, and turned to the trembling girl.
“Miss Austin,” he said kindly, “I like you, I want to help you – but I must ask you to explain yourself a little. The people in my house call you Miss Mystery. Why are you here? Why are you in Corinth at all?”
For a moment the girl seemed about to respond to his kindly, gentle attitude and address. Then, something stayed her, and she let her lovely face harden to a stony blankness, as she replied, “It is a bit intrusive, but I’ve no reason not to tell. I am an art student, and I came here to paint New England winter scenery.”
“Have you done much?”
“I haven’t been here quite a week yet – and I’ve been picking out available bits – and for two days I’ve had a cold.”
“How did you get cold?” The voice was kind but it had a definite note, as if desirous of an accurate answer.
Miss Mystery looked at him.
“How does any one get cold?” she said, trying to smile; “perhaps sitting in a draught – perhaps by means of a germ. It is almost well now.”
“Perhaps by walking in the snow, and getting one’s feet wet,” Mr. Adams suggested, and the girl turned frightened eyes on him.
“Don’t,” she breathed; “Mr. Adams, don’t!” Her voice was piteous her eyes implored him to stop torturing her.
“Why, what’s the harm in my saying that?” he went on, inexorably. “You wouldn’t go anywhere that you wouldn’t want known – would you – Miss Mystery?”
He spoke the last two words in a meaning way, and the great dark eyes faced him with the look of a stag at bay.
Then again, by a desperate effort the girl recovered herself, and said, coldly,
“Please speak plainly, Mr. Adams. Is there a special meaning in your words?”
“There is, Miss Austin. Perhaps I have no right to ask you why – but I do ask you if you went over to Doctor Waring’s house, late in the evening – night before last?”
“Sunday night, do you mean?”
Miss Mystery controlled her voice, but her hands were clenched and her foot tapped the floor in her stifled excitement.
“Yes, Sunday night.”
“No; of course I did not go over there at night. I was there in the afternoon, with Mrs. Bates and Mr. Payne.”
“I know that. And you then met Doctor Waring for the first time?”
“For the first time,” she spoke with downcast face.
“The first time in your life?”
“The first time in my life,” but if ever a statement carried its own denial that one seemed to. The long dark lashes fell on the white cheeks. The pale lips quivered, and if Anita Austin had been uttering deepest perjury she could have shown no more convincing evidence of falsehood.
Yet old Salt looked at her benevolently. She was so young, so small, so alone – and so mysterious.
“I can’t make you out,” he shook his head. “But I’m for you, Miss Austin. That is,” he hedged, “unless I find out something definite against you. I feel I ought to tell you, that you’ve enemies – yes,” as the girl looked up surprised, “you’ve made enemies in this house. Small wonder – the way you’ve acted! Now, why can’t you be chummy and sociable like?”
“Chummy? Sociable? With whom?”
“With all the boarders. There’s young Lockwood now – and there’s young Tyler – ”
“Yes, yes, I know. I will – Mr. Adams – I will try to be more sociable. Now – as to – to Doctor Waring – why did he kill himself?”
Old Salt eyed her narrowly. “We don’t know that he did,” he began.
“But Mrs. Adams told me all the details” – she shuddered, “and if that room he was in was so securely locked that they had to break in, how could it be the work of – of another?”
“Well, Miss Austin, as they found a bad wound in the man’s neck, just under his right ear, a wound that produced instant unconsciousness and almost instant death, and as no weapon of any sort could be found in the room, how could it have been suicide?”
“Which would you rather think it?” the strange girl asked, looking gravely at him.
“Well, to me – I’m an old-fashioned chap – suicide always suggests cowardice, and Doc Waring was no coward, that I’ll swear!”
“No, he was not – ”
“How do you know?”
Miss Mystery started at the sudden question.
“I heard him lecture, you know,” she returned; “and, too, I saw him in his home – Sunday afternoon – and he seemed a fine man – a fine man.”
“Well, Miss Austin,” Old Salt rose to go, “I’m free to confess you’re a mystery to me. I consider myself a fair judge of men – yes, and of women, but when a slip of a girl like you acts so strange, I can’t make it out. Now, I happen to know – ”
He paused at the panic-stricken look on her face, and lamely concluded;
“Never mind – I won’t tell.”
With which cryptic remark he went away.
“Well, what you been saying to her?” demanded his aggrieved spouse, as the Adamses met in their own little sitting-room.
“Why, nothing,” Old Salt replied, and his troubled eyes looked at her pleadingly. “I don’t think she’s wrong, Esther.”
“Well, I do. And maybe a whole lot wrong. Why, Saltonstall, Miss Bascom says she saw Miss Austin traipsing across the field late Sunday night.”
“She didn’t! I don’t believe a word of it! She’s a meddling old maid – a snooping busybody!”
“There, now, you carry on like that because you’re afraid we will discover something wrong about Miss Mystery.”
“Look here, Esther,” Adams spoke sternly; “you remember she’s a young girl, without anybody to stand up for her, hereabouts. Now, you know what a bobbery a few words can kick up. And we don’t want that poor child’s name touched by a breath of idle gossip that isn’t true. I don’t believe Liza Bascom saw her out on Sunday night! I don’t even believe she thought she did!”
“Well, I believe it. Liza Bascom’s no fool – ”
“She’s worse, she’s a knave! And she hates little Austin, and she’d say anything, true or false, to harm the girl.”
“But, Salt, she says she saw Miss Austin, all in her fur coat and cap going cross lots to the Waring house Sunday evening – late.”
“Can she prove it?”
“I don’t know about that. But she saw her.”
“How does she know it was Miss Austin? It might have been somebody who looked like her.”