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Sweetwater's face instantly lit up. "Do you mean that I after my egregious failure am not to be kept on the dunce's seat? That you will give me this new job?" "Yes. We don't know of a better man. It isn't your fault, you said it yourself, that water couldn't be squeezed out of a millstone." "The Superintendent how does he feel about it?" "He was the first one to mention you." "And the Inspector?"
The door led into Miss Cumberland's room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it. Sweetwater's fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant.
"I hope I won't forget that word," he remarked, in a careless tone, intended to carry off his momentary show of feeling. "If you do, then don't expect the twenty-five dollars," retorted the other, finishing his own glass, but not offering to renew Sweetwater's. Sweetwater laughed, said he thought he could trust his memory, and rose.
Suddenly the lightning flashed again, this time so vividly and so near that the whole heaven burst into fiery illumination above them and the thunder, crashing almost simultaneously, seemed for a moment to rock the world and bow the heavens towards them. Then a silence; then Sweetwater's whisper in Mr. Challoner's ear: "Take them away! I saw him; he was falling like a shot." Mr.
I can much sooner imagine him stealing it; yes, or striking a blow for it, so that the blow shut forever the eyes that saw him do it." "You don't believe your own words, Mr. Fenton. How can you?" Sweetwater's hand was on the breast of the accused man as he spoke, and his manner was almost solemn.
The lantern gone, the room resumed its former appearance. Abel, who had been much struck by Sweetwater's mysterious manoeuvres, drew near Dr. Talbot and whispered in his ear: "We might have done without that fellow from Boston." To which the coroner replied: "Perhaps so, and perhaps not. Sweetwater has not yet proved his case; let us wait till he explains himself."
He carried another list, that of certain small groceries and quiet unobtrusive hotels where a man could find a private room in which to drink alone; it being Sweetwater's conviction that in such a place, and in such a place only, would be found the tokens of those solitary hours spent by Arthur Cumberland between the time of his sister's murder and his reappearance the next day.
Sweetwater's hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended. He had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of the coroner's advice to go easy. "Easy it is," was his internal reply. "I'll walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet." The door was opened to him, this time.
"The sight of me might unnerve him," was Sweetwater's thought, "precipitating the very catastrophe we dread. One look, one word on his part indicative of his inner apprehensions that his son had a hand in the crime which has so benefited him, and nothing can save Frederick from the charge of murder. Not Knapp's skill, my silence, or Amabel's finesse. The young man will be lost."
So were Sweetwater's friends and associates with the exception of a certain old gentleman living on the hill, and Knapp the detective. He, that is the latter, had his explanation at his tongue's end: "Sweetwater is a fakir. He thought he could carry off the honours from the regular force, and when he found he couldn't he quietly disappeared. We shall hear of him again in the Brazils."
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