Edgar smiled, but it was not naturally. The constraint in his manner had
increased rather than diminished, and he seemed anxious to start upon
the round of calls he had purposed to make.
"You must excuse me," said he, "I shall have to be off. You are coming
back to-morrow?"
"If business does not detain me."
"You will find me in my new office by that time. I have rented the small
brown house you must have noticed on the main street. Come there, and if
you do not mind bachelor housekeeping, stay with me while you remain in
town. I shall have a good cook, you may be sure, and as for a room, the
north chamber has already been set apart for you."
Frank's face softened and he grasped the doctor's hand.
"That's good of you; it looks as if you expected me to need it."
"Have you not a Harriet Smith to find?"
Frank shrugged his shoulders. "I see that you understand lawyers."
Frank rode down to the depot with Jerry. As he passed Miss Cavanagh's
house he was startled to perceive a youthful figure bending over the
flower-beds on the inner side of the wall. "She is not so pretty by
daylight," was his first thought. But at that moment she raised her
head, and with a warm thrill he recognized the fact that it was not
Hermione, but the sister he was looking at.
It gave him something to think of, for this sister was not without her
attractions, though they were less brilliant and also less marred than
those of the sad and stately Hermione.
When he arrived at his office his first inquiry was if anything had been
heard from Flatbush, and upon being told to the contrary he immediately
started for that place. He found the house a scene of some tumult.
Notwithstanding the fact that the poor woman still lay unburied, the
parlors and lower hall were filled with people, who stared at the walls
and rapped with wary but eager knuckles on the various lintels and
casements. Whispers of a treasure having been found beneath the boards
of the flooring had reached the ear of the public, and the greatest
curiosity had been raised in the breasts of those who up to this day had
looked upon the house as a worm-eaten structure fit only for the shelter
of dogs.
Mr. Dickey was in a room above, and to him Frank immediately hastened.
"Well," said he, "what news?"
"Ah," cried the jovial witness, coming forward, "glad to see you. Have
you found the heirs?"
"Not yet," rejoined Frank. "Have you had any trouble? I thought I saw a
police-officer below."
"Yes, we had to have some one with authority here. Even Huckins agreed
to that; he is afraid the house will be run away with, I think. Did you
see what a crowd has assembled in the parlors? We let them in so that
Huckins won't seem to be the sole object of suspicion; but he really is,
you know. He gave me plenty to do that night."
"He did, did he?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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