I should have laughed had I been feeling less anxious. His greeting was
so entirely characteristic in the way he shuffled through the necessary
condolences and jumped, with such evident relish, to the gruesome
details.
As I gathered up the reins and backed away from the hitching-post, Terry
broke out with:
"Here, hold on a minute. Where are you going?"
"Back to Four-Pools," I said in some surprise. "I thought you'd want to
unpack your things and get settled."
"Haven't much time to get settled," he laughed. "I have an engagement in
New York the day after to-morrow. How about the cave? Is it too late to
visit it now?"
"Well," I said dubiously, "it's ten miles across the mountains and
pretty heavy roads. It would be dark before we got there."
"As far as that goes, we could visit the cave at night as well as in the
daytime. But I want to examine the neighborhood and interview some of
the people; so I suppose," he added with an impatient sigh, "we'll have
to wait till morning. And now, where's this young Gaylord?"
"He's in the Kennisburg jail."
"And where's that?"
"About three miles from here and six miles from the plantation."
"Ah--suppose we pay him a visit first. There are one or two points
concerning his whereabouts on the night of the robbery and his actions
on the day of the murder that I should like to have him clear up."
I smiled slightly as I turned the horses' heads toward Kennisburg.
Radnor in his present uncommunicative frame of mind was not likely to
afford Terry much satisfaction.
"There isn't any time to waste," he added as we drove along. "Just let
me have your account of everything that happened, beginning with the
first appearance of the ghost."
I briefly sketched the situation at Four-Pools as I had found it on my
arrival, and the events preceding the robbery and the murder. Terry
interrupted me once or twice with questions. He was particularly
interested in the three-cornered situation concerning Radnor, Polly
Mathers, and Jim Mattison, and I was as brief as possible in my replies;
I did not care to make Polly the heroine of a Sunday feature article. He
was also persistent in regard to Jefferson's past. I told him all I
knew, added the story of my own suspicions, and ended by producing the
telegram proving his alibi.
"H'm!" said Terry folding it thoughtfully and putting it in his pocket.
"It had occurred to me too that Jeff might be our man--this puts an end
to the theory that he personally committed the murder. There are some
very peculiar points about this case," he added. "As a matter of fact, I
don't believe that Radnor Gaylord is any more guilty of the crime than I
am--or I shouldn't have come. But it won't do for me to jump at
conclusions until I get more data. I suppose you realize what is the
peculiarly significant point about the murder?"
"You mean Mose's disappearance?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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