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"But you will tell me if she and Mr. Alan Craik are now betrothered?" At that Caw's manner relaxed; he smiled rather complacently. "As a matter of fact, Monsoor," he replied, "the event took place yesterday, at four thirty-five p.m." "Bravo! But I am not all surprised. That night, when I see them together, I begin to smell a mouse."
And now Caw's voice was heard calling: "Mr. Alan, Mr. Alan, wait till I get another lamp." At that on Bullard's face the sweat broke thickly. With a gasp he let Flitch drop like a heavy sack, and started to run. Not far beyond the gates Flitch overtook him. Between thick sobs Flitch was moaning: "I heard his voice. 'Twas clear and strong. He's alive! ... I didn't kill him after all.
The topmost thought in Caw's mind then was that the brutes might have had the decency to have waited until his master was laid in the grave. He felt helpless, powerless. He could not doubt that Bullard was playing with him. And in view of the promise to his master he could do nothing to prevent the crime, the desecration as he felt it to be.
Caw's Great Dane had lately been finding frequent tit-bits in that particular spot, and now he was making another tasty meal his last. Mrs. Lancaster closed the window and after washing her hands went back to the fire. It supplied all the light she required for the present. There was nothing that needed to be done for an hour.
One might be pardoned for fancying that the whole affair is a sort of game and rather a silly one at that," Alan said, a trifle irritably. "But for Caw's assurance to the contrary I'd refuse to believe that the box contained anything worth having. My uncle was not a fool, and yet "
Bullard gave a tiny cough and glanced at Lancaster, who immediately said in a somewhat recitative fashion: "I stick to my theory, Bullard, that Mr. Craig, in placing some of his own papers in a green metal box, placed ours along with them." Bullard turned to the servant with a frank look of appeal. "A green metal box. Can you help us, Caw?" It was on Caw's tongue to reply "No, sir."
"I must explain why I arrived at all," she said, in answer to Caw's question. "I came with a message from the doctor he twisted his ankle in the dark not seriously, but quite badly enough to prevent his coming along himself. Well, when I reached the door I noticed from a thread of light that it was not absolutely shut " "My fault, miss.
The host eyed him in the firelight. "You don't feel like telling it just at once, do you?" he enquired kindly. He had been thinking his friend was looking none too fit. "Oh, I don't mind, Alan, if you care to have it now." "I admit curiosity. Is there anything to prevent your telling it in Caw's presence? Be quite candid " "Caw is welcome to it." "Thanks," Alan rang the bell.
He had cursed Alan as a scheming interloper, and so forth, and had actually expressed the wish that he might leave his bones "up there." And last night, the girl's note had given his mind nothing more than a nasty jar. Bullard? why, that idea, he had thought, was still more absurd than the other! But now what was he to believe? Caw's revelation seemed to leave him no choice.
Craik," said Guidet, controlling himself and sympathetically considering Caw's red eyes and husky voice. "Good! but you look upon the wine when he was wheesky, and there is not so much jolly good fellow in the morning eh, Mr. Caw?" "Oh, yes, we've been doing a lot of rejoicing I don't think," returned Caw with weary good humour.
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