It was on my tongue to mention the truth, but I checked myself in time. Evidently the police hoped to gain something by keeping the real facts dark, at least until after Jakey's arrest. After dinner I drove round, by way of the Bend, to the Lessings' bungalow. The Menning place was a mere charred ruin, except for the outhouses which stood empty and deserted. The few remaining chickens--Menning had sold out the greater part of his stock a few days before the fire, which was another reason why his neighbours thought it premeditated--had been taken elsewhere; the cow, filthy and gaunt from weeks of neglect, poor brute, was grazing hungrily in a small stony pasture adjoining, thankful to be at liberty. Old Paddy, with a greasy, old velvet cap on and his feet in slashed shoes, was leaning over his fence-railing, smoking his black pipe. I asked about Menning's mother. "The old woman, she's took an' cleared out. Scared er Aaron, I guess. She got a wheelbarrer an' loaded her bits o' truck on it, an' carted it up to that little empty shack back off the road yonder, what belongs to Scholl. Reckon the Scholls don't mind her usin' it. She wouldn't have no help neither--carted the lot herself, in two journeys, an' I'll say she's still pretty spry on her feet fur an old lady, though she does look so feeble. My darter, she was sorry fur the old soul, an' she gives her some potatoes an' a bag o' flour, but she didn't git so much as a thank you for it. Jest chucked 'em on the barrer an' went off. Kinder dazed that night, she was, but she come round pretty quick once the excitement was over." He paused to spit, with precision, at a white stone by the fence rail. "No one ain't seen nothin' of Aaron." "No," I said. "Guess they won't, neither. He's cleared out for good, by the looks of it." "Maybe it's well." "No one round here ain't grumblin'. It's a case o' good riddance. I don't trust Aaron. My darter, she ain't lettin' her young 'un run through the woods, neither. He'd orter be jailed an' done with it." I found Mary and Lessing on the porch. They hailed me cheerfully, and I hitched the mare in the shade and joined them. "Poor old Crowfoot," said Lessing. "I don't think the arm of the law was best pleased at being fetched out on a wild goose chase last night. It's my private opinion that Lennox has solaced his loneliness by reading up on detective novels. I always thought he had some bats in his belfry. Did he tell you anything more last night?" "Quite a lot." I told them the story as briefly as I could. "Lennox is crazy," Dick said when I had finished. "The thing doesn't hang together. And when he gets to a point where he can't trust his judgment as to the identity of a man in one case, how can he trust it in another? What did Herrick think?" "He didn't say definitely." "So like Herrick! What?"