“My reputation?” He had started very visibly at these words. “Madam, be careful. I admire you, but—”
“No offence,” said I. “For a stranger I have been, perhaps, unduly frank. I only mean that anyone who lives in this lane must feel himself more or less enveloped by the shadow which rests upon it. When that is lifted, each and everyone of you will feel himself a man again. From indications to be seen in the lane today, that time may not be far distant. Mother Jane is a likely source for the mysteries that agitate us. She knows just enough to have no proper idea of the value of a human life.”
The Deacon’s retort was instantaneous. “Madam,” said he, with a snap of his fingers, “I have not that much interest in what is going on down there. If men have been killed in this lane (which I do not believe), old Mother Jane has had no hand in it. My opinion is—and you may value it or not, just as you please—that what the people hereabout call crimes are so many coincidences, which some day or other will receive their due explanation. Everyone who has disappeared in this vicinity has disappeared naturally. No one has been killed. That is my theory, and you will find it correct. On this point I have expended more than a little thought.”
I was irate. I was also dumbfounded at his audacity. Did he think I was the woman to be deceived by any such balderdash as that? But I shut my lips tightly lest I should say something, and he, not finding this agreeable, being no conversationalist himself, drew himself up with a pompously expressed hope that he would see me again after his reputation was cleared, when his attention as well as my own was diverted by seeing William’s slouching figure appear in the barn door and make slowly towards us.
Instantly the Deacon forgot me in his interest in William’s approach, which was so slow as to be tantalizing to us both.
When he was within speaking distance, Deacon Spear started towards him.
“Well!” he cried; “one would think you had gone back a dozen or so years and were again robbing your neighbor’s hen-roosts. Been in the hay, eh?” he added, leaning forward and plucking a wisp or two from my companion’s clothes. “Well, what did you find there?”
In trembling fear for what the lout might answer, I put my hand on the buggy rail and struggled anxiously to my seat. William stepped forward and loosened the horse before speaking. Then with a leer he dived into his pocket, and remarking slowly, “I found this,” brought to light a small riding-whip which we both recognized as one he often carried. “I flung it up in the hay yesterday in one of my fits of laughing, so just thought I would bring it down today. You know it isn’t the first time I’ve climbed about those rafters, Deacon, as you have been good enough to insinuate.”
The Deacon, evidently taken aback, eyed the young fellow with a leer in which I saw something more serious than mere suspicion.
“Was that all?” he began, but evidently thought better than to finish, whilst William, with a nonchalance that surprised me, blunderingly avoided his eye, and, bounding into the buggy beside me, started up the horse and drove slowly off.
“Ta, ta, Deacon,” he called back; “if you want to see fun, come up to our end of the lane; there’s precious little here.” And thus, with a laugh, terminated an interview which, all things considered, was the most exciting as well as the most humiliating I have ever taken part in.
“William,” I began, but stopped. The two pigeons whose departure I had watched a little while before were coming back, and, as I spoke, fluttered up to the window before mentioned, where they alighted and began picking up the crumbs which I had seen scattered for them. “See!” I suddenly exclaimed, pointing them out to William. “Was I mistaken when I thought I saw a hand drop crumbs from that window?”
The answer was a very grave one for him.
“No,” said he, “for I have seen more than a hand, through the loophole I made in the hay. I saw a man’s leg stretched out as if he were lying on the floor with his head toward the window. It was but a glimpse I got, but the leg moved as I looked at it, and so I know that someone lies hid in that little nook up under the roof. Now it isn’t anyone belonging to the lane, for I know where every one of us is or ought to be at this blessed moment; and it isn’t a detective, for I heard a sound like heavy sobbing as I crouched there. Then who is it? Silly Rufus, I say; and if that hay was all lifted, we would see sights that would make us ashamed of the apologies we uttered to the old sneak just now.”
“I want to get home,” said I. “Drive fast! Your sisters ought to know this.”
“The girls?” he cried. “Yes, it will be a triumph over them. They never would believe I had an atom of judgment. But we’ll show them, if William Knollys is altogether a fool.”
We were now near to Mr. Trohm’s hospitable gateway. Coming from the excitements of my late interview, it was a relief to perceive the genial owner of this beautiful place wandering among his vines and testing the condition of his fruit by a careful touch here and there. As he heard our wheels he turned, and seeing who we were, threw up his hands in ill-restrained pleasure, and came buoyantly forward. There was nothing to do but to stop, so we
