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"I will tell you what Taggett suspects," he said slowly, "if you will allow me to tell you in my own way. I must ask a number of questions." Richard gave a half-impatient nod of assent. "Where were you on the night of the murder?" inquired Lawyer Perkins, after a slight pause. "I spent the evening at the Slocums', until ten o'clock; then I went home, but not directly.
There were no hacks in waiting at the station, and Richard found his politeness put to a severe test when he saw himself obliged to pilot his companion part of the way to the hotel, which lay it seemed almost maliciously in a section of the town remote from the Slocums'. Curbing his impatience, Richard led the stranger through several crooked, unlighted streets, and finally left him at the corner of the main thoroughfare, within pistol-shot of the red glass lantern which hung over the door of the tavern.
I want to know." "What if she does? She plays it a little, I believe. I don't know. She don't half play it, anyhow; she ain't got an ear." "That wasn't half played last night. I don't like such things happening. I ain't superstitious, but I don't like it. I'm going. Where do the Slocums live?"
More likely he remembers the fuss you made about not being let to go with the Slocums to see the theatre in Pittsburgh. You cried, baby! I didn't." The boy rubbed the back of his hand reminiscently against the leg of his trousers, and Esther was sorry she had reminded him of a painful subject. "Anyway," she said, "you had the best of it.
Rebecca went back to her chamber and kept her lamp burning all night. The next morning her eyes upon Mrs. Dent were wary and blazing with suppressed excitement. She kept opening her mouth as if to speak, then frowning, and setting her lips hard. After breakfast she went upstairs, and came down presently with her coat and bonnet. "Now, Emeline," she said, "I want to know where the Slocums live."
I'm going to find out where that girl is before night." Mrs. Dent eyed her. "What be you going to do?" "I'm going to Lincoln." A faint triumphant smile overspread Mrs. Dent's large face. "You can't," said she; "there ain't any train." "No train?" "No; there ain't any afternoon train from the Falls to Lincoln." "Then I'm going over to the Slocums' again to-night."
She listened while I screamed at her to know where the Slocums were, and then she said, 'Mrs. Smith don't live here. I didn't see anybody on the road, and that's the only house. What do you suppose it means?" "I don't suppose it means much of anything," replied Mrs. Dent coolly. "Mr. Slocum is conductor on the railroad, and he'd be away anyway, and Mrs.
Who would believe the story of his innocent ramble on the turnpike that Tuesday night? Who could doubt that he had gone directly from the Slocums' to Welch's Court, and then crept home red-handed through the deserted streets? Richard heard the steam-whistles recalling the operatives to work, and dimly understood it was one o'clock; but after that he paid no attention to the lapse of time.
Finally she wrote to the postmaster, and an answer arrived by the first possible mail. The letter was short, curt, and to the purpose. Mr. Amblecrom, the postmaster, was a man of few words, and especially wary as to his expressions in a letter. "Dear madam," he wrote, "your favour rec'ed. No Slocums in Ford's Village. All dead. Addie ten years ago, her mother two years later, her father five.
Rebecca would have returned to Ford Village the next morning, but the fatigue and nervous strain had been too much for her. She was not able to move from her bed. She had a species of low fever induced by anxiety and fatigue. But she could write, and she did, to the Slocums, and she received no answer. She also wrote to Mrs. Dent; she even sent numerous telegrams, with no response.
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