More than a mile away, across a dismal sweep of moorland and marshes, could be seen the blue waters of the broad Atlantic, broken by the grim, dark rocks of the peninsula of Nahant. Somewhat nearer was the desolate, gray turnpike making east to the cities of Lynn and Salem. It was the highway of old colonial days, and still was nearly as dreary and void of dwellings as of yore. In the immediate neighborhood, even, the houses were few and far between, and the surrounding country was rough and hilly, interspersed with farms and wide stretches of woodland. As the lawyer alighted from the train a short, thickset man approached him. His grim face was not prepossessing, and he was clad in a rough, gray suit, with his pants tucked in at the top of a pair of heavy cowhide boots, which were soiled with mud. “Be you Mr. French?” he asked bluntly, peering sharply at the lawyer from under his bushy brows. “Yes,” was the reply. “Who are you?” “I’m Darbage, sir--Joe Darbage;” and now the fellow touched his woolen cap. “I’m the stablehand up to the house, yonder, and Mr. Thorpe sent me down here to get you. He said you might come by this train. Bad business, this, sir!” “I see,” nodded the lawyer, who had not recognized the fellow as Moore’s groom and gardener. “Will there be room for my clerk, also?” “Aye, sir, I reckon so. Tumble in, and I’ll squat in the middle.” With no observable interest in the bumpkin, who did not quite impress him as a thoroughbred countryman, Sheridan Keene followed the lawyer into the wagon and suffered Mr. Darbage to squeeze his broad hips between them. “I’d ’a’ come with the carryall if I’d knowed there were two o’ you,” he explained, with a side glance at the face of the detective. “Get up! G’lang!” “I brought a clerk, thinking I might need him,” said Mr. French, as the vehicle rattled over the rough road. “I reckon there’ll be room enough, now the old man’s gone,” returned Darbage irreverently. “There wa’n’t room for no extras, though, when he was alive.” “Then old Jacob is really dead, is he?” “Aye, sir, as dead as he’ll ever be in this world. Can’t say what he’ll come to in the next.” “Well, this world is the one we have most to do with while in it,” said the lawyer, with some austerity. “What are the particulars? I have only Mr. Thorpe’s telegram saying Jacob had been murdered.” Darbage looked up without a change of countenance. “Aye, sir, he was murdered, right enough,” said he, in his grim fashion. “Ma’am Haynie found him dead in bed this morning, with two knife slits atween his ribs, and most of his blood run out of his body, which wasn’t much, at that.” “Is it known when the crime was committed?” “I reckon not, sir, though I’m not sartin. Jim Bragg, the constable, is up there nosing round and looking as wise as an owl; but I can’t say what he’s l’arned. They don’t tell me much.” “Is Mr. Thorpe at the house?” “Aye, sir; he’s been down here nigh a week.” “Isn’t that quite a long visit for him?”