"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?"
"He seemed to lay more stress on the dogs' footprints and the button
Lennox picked up than on anything else. Oddly enough, someone else
spoke of dogs, now I think of it." And I told him what the chauffeur
had said last night.
"Queer," said Lessing. "You'd think he'd know a dog when he saw one.
I'd like to have a look at that button."
"Herrick has it."
"He has..." Lessing was silent a moment. "Even if Jakey did kill
Aaron, and Aaron is really his brother--hang it all, the thing's so
mixed--I don't see that that gets us any further on. Does Lennox
think he's at the back of everything? What's he playing at?"
"He was at the back of Rebecca's scare, and that business of Freeman.
If Freeman were only well enough to speak.... I don't know that he
could tell us much then, that we haven't found out for ourselves."
"Grant that Jakey did kill his brother, and has succeeded in putting
it over. He was at the bottom of all these Dutchman's Hill scares,
and that business with Rebecca. Freeman found out something, and he
laid for Freeman ... and got him. That doesn't explain the cyclist
affair, nor what happened to me."
"And it doesn't explain another thing, either," said Mary, breaking
in for the first time. "It doesn't explain what the one point was
that Lennox himself was unwilling to face, what it was he tried to
avoid by ridiculous explanations that wouldn't satisfy a child. I
don't mean recently, I mean further back, almost in the beginning,
the second time he was here to attend Dick." She turned to her
brother. "Perhaps I haven't told you this before. But it did strike
me at the time, and afterwards I've been thinking of it more and more.
"I was standing out here on the porch, wondering whether I could
leave you with Kate and slip over to Lennox's house, or whether I
could get hold of anyone to send, when Lennox himself came by,
driving. I ran out to stop him and tell him what had happened. He
pulled up as soon as he saw me, before I had time to call out, and I
tell you if I ever saw a man frightened it was then. He was afraid,
and he was afraid before he saw me, or even knew what I had to say.
Something had happened, something that gave him a shock, before he
came up the road there. He tried to pass it off, but I'm not a fool;
I know when a person is just puzzled, and I know when he is afraid,
and I tell you that Lennox was afraid. And I'd like to know just
what it was that frightened him."
"Where was he coming from?" Lessing asked.
"Down the road here, the way Austin came just now. He came from the
Bend."
"From Menning's place."
"It might have been. I don't know. He didn't say and I didn't ask
him. But something, that morning, had happened to upset him before
he got here. And it was as if he knew--or at least expected, what he
was going to find."
"Did you ask him?"
"I said something about it. He told me he'd been up all night on a
case some miles away, that he'd only left at daybreak to drive back,
and that he felt all in. But it was something more than that, I feel
certain, to have thrown him into the state he was in."
"I shall ask him tonight," I said. "If he's keeping anything
back----"
"Ask him!" said Mary. "Ask him, and get the truth! You can tell him
just what I said."
I had promised to look in at the Sliefers' again, later in the
evening, and instead of doing so on my way back, Mary proposed that I
should walk across with her, after tea, while Lessing got some
letters written.
"I want some cream for supper," she said, "and I want to see Rebecca
too. I meant to go this morning. If you don't mind the walk we'll
take Leo along. He hasn't had a run today yet."
She called the setter and he came bounding up, glad enough of the
prospect of a walk.
"Poor old Leo!" Mary said. "He doesn't get half enough exercise.
We'll take the leash, Austin, if you don't mind. There's a collie at
the farm and the two are sworn enemies. I always have to fasten him
if I go there."
I put the leash in my pocket and we set off through the woods by a
short cut that brought us out eventually upon the cart-track near the
old saw-mill. On the other side of this road the Sliefers' land
began, and only a couple of pasture fields, with low snake-fences,
separated us from the farm. Leo had dropped behind after we passed
the mill, and as we stopped by the fence to wait for him we saw a
woman coming along the path. She wore a faded check cotton dress and
a sunbonnet that almost hid her face, and she was carrying a basket
filled with chips, evidently gathered near the mill. As she drew
near I caught a flash of very keen eyes, set in a dark wrinkled face,
directed upon us in a glance that was by no means friendly.
Mary stepped forward and spoke to her, and I saw her slip something
into the old woman's hand. The gnarled fingers closed on it
unwillingly; she muttered something and passed on.
"Do you know her?" I asked.
"It's old Mrs. Menning," Mary said. "Poor old soul! She's
crotchety, but I can't help feeling sorry for her. Is it true they
are sending her to the poorhouse?"
"I've no idea. Old Paddy Nevill told me she'd moved her things up to
some little empty shack near her old place. I suppose they'll let
her stay there till something can be arranged."
I watched the bent, dragging figure out of sight. As Paddy had said,
she covered the ground fairly spryly, for all her feebleness of gait.
It was my first acquaintance with this woman to whose personality
Herrick had particularly drawn my attention the night before. If
Lennox were right, she had played an almost incredibly cunning part
throughout, even if her brain had not itself evolved the whole plot.
"You'd think she could find chips nearer than the saw-mill," Mary
said. "It's a good walk from the Nevills' place, if she's near
there. I wouldn't wonder if the old body were unhinged by the fire
altogether. She's never friendly at her best, but she looked quite
queer just now. Did you notice how she was muttering to herself?"