“I see,” remarked Byrd, “that you are presuming to understand Miss Dare after all.”
Hickory smiled.
“You call this woman a mystery,” proceeded Byrd; “hint at great possibilities of acting on her part, and yet in a moment, as it were, profess yourself the reader of her inmost thoughts, and the interpreter of looks and expressions she has manifestly assumed to hide those thoughts.”
Hickory’s smile broadened into a laugh.
“Just so,” he cried. “One’s imbecility has to stop somewhere.” Then, as he saw Byrd look grave, added: “I haven’t a single fact at my command that isn’t shared by you. My conclusions are different, that is all.”
Horace Byrd did not answer. Perhaps if Hickory could have sounded his thoughts he would have discovered that their conclusions were not so far apart as he imagined.
“Hickory,” Byrd at last demanded, “what do you propose to do with your conclusions?”
“I propose to wait and see if Mr. Orcutt proves his case. If he don’t, I have nothing more to say; but if he does, I think I shall call the attention of Mr. Ferris to one question he has omitted to ask Miss Dare.”
“And what is that?”
“Where she was on the morning of Mrs. Clemmens’ murder. You remember you took some interest in that question yourself a while ago.”
“But—”
“Not that I think anything will come of it, only my conscience will be set at rest.”
“Hickory,”—Byrd’s face had quite altered now—“where do you think Miss Dare was at that time?”
“Where do I think she was?” repeated Hickory.
“Well, I will tell you. I think she was not in Professor Darling’s observatory.”
“Do you think she was in the glade back of Widow Clemmens’ house?”
“Now you ask me conundrums.”
“Hickory!” Byrd spoke almost violently, “Mr. Orcutt shall not prove his case.”
“No?”
“I will make the run over the ground supposed to have been taken by Mansell in his flight, and show in my own proper person that it can be done in the time specified.”
Hickory’s eye, which had taken a rapid survey of his companion’s form during the utterance of the above, darkened, then he slowly shook his head.
“You couldn’t,” he rejoined laconically. “Too little staying power; you’d give out before you got clear of the woods. Better delegate the job to me.”
“To you?”
“Yes. I’m of the make to stand long runs; besides I am no novice at athletic sports of any kind. More than one race has owed its interest to the efforts of your humble servant. ’Tis my pet amusement, you see, as offhand drawing is yours, and is likely to be of as much use to me, eh?”
“Hickory, you are chaffing me.”
“Think so? Do you see that five-barred gate over there? Well, now keep your eye on the top rail and see if I clear it without a graze or not.”
“Stop!” exclaimed Mr. Byrd, “don’t make a fool of yourself in the public street. I’ll believe you if you say you understand such things.”
“Well, I do, and what is more, I’m an adept at them. If I can’t make that run in the time requisite to show that Mansell could have committed the murder, and yet arrive at the station the moment he did, I don’t know of a chap who can.”
“Hickory, do you mean to say you will make this run?”
“Yes.”
“With a conscientious effort to prove that Orcutt’s scheme of defence is false?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“While we are in court?”
“Yes.”
Byrd turned square around, gave Hickory a look and offered his hand.
“You are a good fellow,” he declared. “May luck go with you.”
Hickory suddenly became unusually thoughtful.
“A little while ago,” he reflected, “this fellow’s sympathies were all with Mansell; now he would risk my limbs and neck to have the man proved guilty. He does not wish Miss Dare to be questioned again, I see.”
“Hickory,” resumed Byrd, a few minutes later, “Orcutt has not rested the defence upon this one point without being very sure of its being unassailable.”
“I know that.”
“He has had more than one expert make that run during the weeks that have elapsed since the murder. It has been tested to the uttermost.”
“I know that.”
“If you succeed then in doing what none of these others have, it must be by dint of a better understanding of the route you have to take and the difficulties you will have to overcome. Now, do you understand the route?”
“I think so.”
“You will have to start from the widow’s door, you know?”
“Certain.”
“Cross the bog, enter the woods, skirt the hut—but I won’t go into details. The best way to prove you know exactly what you have to do is to see if you can describe the route yourself. Come into my room, old fellow, and let us see if you can give me a sufficiently exact account of the ground you will have to pass over, for me to draw up a chart by it. An hour spent with paper and pencil tonight may save you from an uncertainty tomorrow that would lose you a good ten minutes.”
“Good! that’s an idea; let’s try it,” rejoined Hickory.
And being by this time at the hotel, they went in. In another moment they were shut up in
