“I have no wish to rob you of any glory you may hope to reap from the success of the plot you have carried on here today,” he presently declared, with some bitterness; “but if this Craik Mansell is guilty, I suppose it is my duty to help you in the collection of all suitable and proper evidence against him.”
“Then,” said the other, who had been watching him with rather an anxious eye, “let us to work.” And, sitting down on the table, he motioned to Mr. Byrd to take a seat upon the block at his side.
But the latter kept up his walk.
Hickory surveyed him for a moment in silence, then he said:
“You must have something against this young man, or you wouldn’t be here. What is it? What first set you thinking about Craik Mansell?”
Now, this was a question Mr. Byrd could not and would not answer. After what had just passed in the hut, he felt it impossible to mention to this man the name of Imogene Dare in connection with that of the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens. He therefore waived the other’s interrogation and remarked:
“My knowledge was rather the fruit of surmise than fact. I did not believe in the guilt of Gouverneur Hildreth, and so was forced to look about me for someone whom I could conscientiously suspect. I fixed upon this unhappy man in Buffalo; how truly, your own suspicions, unfortunately, reveal.”
“And I had to have my wits started by a horrid old woman,” murmured the evidently abashed Hickory.
“Horrid old woman!” repeated Mr. Byrd. “Not Sally Perkins?”
“Yes. A sweet one, isn’t she?”
Mr. Byrd shuddered.
“Tell me about it,” said he, coming and sitting down in the seat the other had previously indicated to him.
“I will, sir; I will: but first let’s look at the weather. Some folks would think it just as well for you to change that toggery of yours. What do you say to going home first, and talking afterward?”
“I suppose it would be wise,” admitted Mr. Byrd, looking down at his garments, whose decidedly damp condition he had scarcely noticed in his excitement. “And yet I hate to leave this spot till I learn how you came to choose it as the scene of the tragicomedy you have enacted here today, and what position it is likely to occupy in the testimony which you have collected against this young man.”
“Wait, then,” said the bustling fellow, “till I build you the least bit of a fire to warm you. It won’t take but a minute,” he averred, piling together some old sticks that cumbered the hearth, and straightway setting a match to them. “See! isn’t that pleasant? And now, just cast your eye at this!” he continued, drawing a comfortable-looking flask out of his pocket and handing it over to the other with a dry laugh. “Isn’t this pleasant?” And he threw himself down on the floor and stretched out his hands to the blaze, with a gusto which the dreary hour he had undoubtedly passed made perfectly natural, if not excusable.
“I thank you,” said Mr. Byrd; “I didn’t know I was so chilled,” and he, too, enjoyed the warmth. “And, now,” he pursued, after a moment, “go on; let us have the thing out at once.”
But the other was in no hurry. “Very good, sir,” he cried; “but, first, if you don’t mind, suppose you tell me what brought you to this hut today?”
“I was on the lookout for clues. In my study of the situation, I decided that the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens escaped, not from the front, but from the back, of the house. Taking the path I imagined him to have trod, I came upon this hut. It naturally attracted my attention, and today I came back to examine it more closely in the hope of picking up some signs of his having been here, or at least of having passed through the glade on his way to the deeper woods.”
“And what, if you had succeeded in this, sir? What, if some token of his presence had rewarded your search?”
“I should have completed a chain of proof of which only this one link is lacking. I could have shown how Craik Mansell fled from this place on last Tuesday afternoon, making his way through the woods to the highway, and thence to the Quarry Station at Monteith, where he took the train which carried him back to Buffalo.”
“You could!—show me how?”
Mr. Byrd explained himself more definitely.
Hickory at once rose.
“I guess we can give you the link,” he dryly remarked. “At all events, suppose you just step here and tell me what conclusion you draw from the appearance of this pile of brush.”
Mr. Byrd advanced and looked at a small heap of hemlock that lay in a compact mass in one corner.
“I have not disturbed it,” pursued the other. “It is just as it was when I found it.”
“Looks like a pillow,” declared Mr. Byrd. “Has been used for such, I am sure; for see, the dust in this portion of the floor lies lighter than elsewhere. You can almost detect the outline of a man’s recumbent form,” he went on, slowly, leaning down to examine the floor more closely. “As for the boughs, they have been cut from the tree with a knife, and—” Lifting up a sprig, he looked at it, then passed it over to Hickory, with a meaning glance that directed attention to one or two short hairs of a dark brown color, that were caught in the rough bark. “He did not even throw his pocket-handkerchief over the heap before lying down,” he observed.
Mr. Hickory smiled. “You’re up in your business, I see.” And drawing his new colleague to the table, he asked him what he saw there.
At first sight Mr. Byrd exclaimed: “Nothing,” but in another moment he picked up an infinitesimal chip from between the rough logs that
