‘I had planned for three years, perhaps,’ said I.
‘I tell you, we’ll do it in three days,’ he repeated. ‘Where can I get board while I canvass for this remarkable and interesting book under my arm? I can’t stay here, of course, and there is no hotel. Do you think the two dressmakers next door, Phoebe Dole and the other one, would take me in?’
I said they had never taken boarders.
‘Well, I’ll go over and enquire,’ said Mr Dix; and he had gone, with his book under his arm, almost before I knew it.
Never have I seen anyone act with the strange noiseless soft speed that this man does. Can he prove me innocent in three days? He must have succeeded in getting board at Phoebe Dole’s, for I saw him go past to meeting with her this evening. I feel sure he will be over very early tomorrow morning.
* * * * * *
Monday night. – The detective came as I expected. I was up as soon as it was light, and he came across the dewy fields, with his Cyclopædia under his arm. He had stolen out from Phoebe Dole’s back door.
He had me bring my father’s pistol; then he bade me come with him out into the backyard. ‘Now, fire it,’ he said, thrusting the pistol into my hands. As I have said before, the charge was still in the barrel.
‘I shall arouse the neighbourhood,’ I said.
‘Fire it,’ he ordered.
I tried; I pulled the trigger as hard as I could.
‘I can’t do it,’ I said.
‘And you are a reasonably strong woman, too, aren’t you?’
I said I had been considered so. Oh, how much I heard about the strength of my poor woman’s arms, and their ability to strike that murderous weapon home!
Mr Dix took the pistol himself, and drew a little at the trigger.
‘I could do it,’ he said, ‘but I won’t. It would arouse the neighbourhood.’
‘This is more evidence against me,’ I said despairingly. ‘The murderer had tried to fire the pistol and failed.’
‘It is more evidence against the murderer,’ said Mr Dix.
We went into the house, where he examined my box of clues long and carefully. Looking at the ring, he asked whether there was a jeweller in this village, and I said there was not. I told him that my father oftener went on business to Acton, ten miles away, than elsewhere.
He examined very carefully the button which I had found in the closet, and then asked to see my father’s wardrobe. That was soon done. Beside the suit in which father was laid away there was one other complete one in the closet in his room. Besides that, there were in this closet two overcoats, an old black frock coat, a pair of pepper-and-salt trousers, and two black vests. Mr Dix examined all the buttons; not one was missing.
There was still another old suit in the closet off the kitchen. This was examined, and no button found wanting.
‘What did your father do for work the day before he died?’ he then asked.
I reflected and said that he had unpacked some stores which had come down from Vermont, and done some work out in the garden.
‘What did he wear?’
‘I think he wore the pepper-and-salt trousers and the black vest. He wore no coat, while at work.’
Mr Dix went quietly back to father’s room and his closet, I following. He took out the grey trousers and the black vest, and examined them closely.
‘What did he wear to protect these?’ he asked.
‘Why, he wore overalls!’ I said at once. As I spoke I remembered seeing father go around the path to the yard, with those blue overalls drawn up high under his arms.
‘Where are they?’
‘Weren’t they in the kitchen closet?’
‘No.’
We looked again, however, in the kitchen closet; we searched the shed thoroughly. The cat came in through her little door, as we stood there, and brushed around our feet. Mr Dix stooped and stroked her. Then he went quickly to the door, beside which her little entrance was arranged, unhooked it, and stepped out. I was following him, but he motioned me back.
‘None of my boarding mistress’s windows commands us,’ he said, ‘but she might come to the back door.’
I watched him. He passed slowly around the little winding footpath, which skirted the rear of our house and extended faintly through the grassy fields to the rear of Phoebe Dole’s. He stopped, searched a clump of sweetbriar, went on to an old well, and stopped there. The well had been dry many a year, and was choked up with stones and rubbish. Some boards are laid over it, and a big stone or two, to keep them in place.
Mr Dix, glancing across at Phoebe Dole’s back door, went down on his knees, rolled the stones away, then removed the boards and peered down the well. He stretched far over the brink, and reached down. He made many efforts; then he got up and came to me, and asked me to get for him an umbrella with a crooked handle, or something that he could hook into clothing.
I brought my own umbrella, the silver handle of which formed an exact hook. He went back to the well, knelt again, thrust in the umbrella and drew up, easily enough, what he had been fishing for. Then he came bringing it to me.
‘Don’t faint,’ he said, and took hold of my arm. I gasped when I saw what he had – my father’s blue overalls, all stained and splotched with blood!
I looked at them, then at him.
‘Don’t faint,’ he said again. ‘We’re on the right track. This is where the button came from – see, see!’ He pointed to one of the straps of the overalls, and the button was gone. Some white thread clung to it. Another black metal button was sewed on roughly with
