"No offence," said I. "For a stranger I have been, perhaps, unduly frank. I only mean that any one who lives in this lane must feel himself more or less enveloped by the shadow which rests upon it. When that is lifted, each and every one of you will feel himself a man again. From indications to be seen in the lane to-day, that time may not be far distant. Mother Jane is a likely source for the mysteries that agitate us. She knows just enough to have no proper idea of the value of a human life."

The Deacon's retort was instantaneous. "Madam," said he, with a snap of his fingers, "I have not that much interest in what is going on down there. If men have been killed in this lane (which I do not believe), old Mother Jane has had no hand in it. My opinion is--and you may value it or not, just as you please--that what the people hereabout call crimes are so many coincidences, which some day or other will receive their due explanation. Every one who has disappeared in this vicinity has disappeared naturally. No one has been killed. That is my theory, and you will find it correct. On this point I have expended more than a little thought."

I was irate. I was also dumfounded at his audacity. Did he think I was the woman to be deceived by any such balderdash as that? But I shut my lips tightly lest I should say something, and he, not finding this agreeable, being no conversationalist himself, drew himself up with a pompously expressed hope that he would see me again after his reputation was cleared, when his attention as well as my own was diverted by seeing William's slouching figure appear in the barn door and make slowly towards us.

Instantly the Deacon forgot me in his interest in William's approach, which was so slow as to be tantalizing to us both.

When he was within speaking distance, Deacon Spear started towards him.

"Well!" he cried; "one would think you had gone back a dozen or so years and were again robbing your neighbor's hen-roosts. Been in the hay, eh?"

he added, leaning forward and plucking a wisp or two from my companion's clothes. "Well, what did you find there?"

In trembling fear for what the lout might answer, I put my hand on the buggy rail and struggled anxiously to my seat. William stepped forward and loosened the horse before speaking. Then with a leer he dived into his pocket, and remarking slowly, "I found _this_," brought to light a small riding-whip which we both recognized as one he often carried. "I flung it up in the hay yesterday in one of my fits of laughing, so just thought I would bring it down to-day. You know it isn't the first time I've climbed about those rafters, Deacon, as you have been good enough to insinuate."

The Deacon, evidently taken aback, eyed the young fellow with a leer in which I saw something more serious than mere suspicion.

"Was that all?" he began, but evidently thought better than to finish, whilst William, with a nonchalance that surprised me, blunderingly avoided his eye, and, bounding into the buggy beside me, started up the horse and drove slowly off.

"Ta, ta, Deacon," he called back; "if you want to see fun, come up to our end of the lane; there's precious little here." And thus, with a laugh, terminated an interview which, all things considered, was the most exciting as well as the most humiliating I have ever taken part in.

"William," I began, but stopped. The two pigeons whose departure I had watched a little while before were coming back, and, as I spoke, fluttered up to the window before mentioned, where they alighted and began picking up the crumbs which I had seen scattered for them. "See!"

I suddenly exclaimed, pointing them out to William. "Was I mistaken when I thought I saw a hand drop crumbs from that window?"

The answer was a very grave one for him.

"No," said he, "for I have seen more than a hand, through the loophole I made in the hay. I saw a man's leg stretched out as if he were lying on the floor with his head toward the window. It was but a glimpse I got, but the leg moved as I looked at it, and so I know that some one lies hid in that little nook up under the roof. Now it isn't any one belonging to the lane, for I know where every one of us is or ought to be at this blessed moment; and it isn't a detective, for I heard a sound like heavy sobbing as I crouched there. Then who is it? Silly Rufus, I say; and if that hay was all lifted, we would see sights that would make us ashamed of the apologies we uttered to the old sneak just now."

"I want to get home," said I. "Drive fast! Your sisters ought to know this."

"The girls?" he cried. "Yes, it will be a triumph over them. They never would believe I had an atom of judgment. But we'll show them, if William Knollys is altogether a fool."

We were now near to Mr. Trohm's hospitable gateway. Coming from the excitements of my late interview, it was a relief to perceive the genial owner of this beautiful place wandering among his vines and testing the condition of his fruit by a careful touch here and there. As he heard our wheels he turned, and seeing who we were, threw up his hands in ill-restrained pleasure, and came buoyantly forward. There was nothing to do but to stop, so we stopped.

"Why, William! Why, Miss b.u.t.terworth, what a pleasure!" Such was his amiable greeting. "I thought you were all busy at your end of the lane; but I see you have just come from town. Had an errand there, I suppose?"

"Yes," William grumbled, eying the luscious pear Mr. Trohm held in his hand.

The look drew a smile from that gentleman.

"Admiring the first fruits?" he observed. "Well, it is a handsome specimen," he admitted, handing it to me with his own peculiar grace. "I beg you will take it, Miss b.u.t.terworth. You look tired; pardon me if I mention it." (He is the only person I know who detects any signs of suffering or fatigue on my part.)

"I am worried by the mysteries of this lane," I ventured to remark. "I hate to see Mother Jane's garden uprooted."

"Ah!" he acquiesced, with much evidence of good feeling, "it is a distressing thing to witness. I wish she might have been spared.

William, there are other pears on the tree this came from. Tie up the horse, I pray, and gather a dozen or so of these for your sisters. They will never be in better condition for plucking than they are to-day."

William, whose mouth and eyes were both watering for a taste of the fine fruit thus offered, moved with alacrity to obey this invitation, while I, more startled than pleased--or, rather, as much startled as pleased--by the prospect of a momentary _tete-a-tete_ with our agreeable neighbor, sat uneasily eying the luscious fruit in my hand, and wishing I was ten years younger, that the blush I felt slowly stealing up my cheek might seem more appropriate to the occasion.

But Mr. Trohm appeared not to share my wish. He was evidently so satisfied with me as I was, that he found it difficult to speak at first, and when he did--But tut! tut! you have no desire to hear any such confidences as these, I am sure. A middle-aged gentleman's expressions of admiration for a middle-aged lady may savor of romance to her, but hardly to the rest of the world, so I will pa.s.s this conversation by, with the single admission that it ended in a question to which I felt obliged to return a reluctant _No_.

Mr. Trohm was just recovering from the disappointment of this, when William sauntered back with his hands and pockets full.

"Ah!" that graceless scamp chuckled, with a suspicious look at our downcast faces, "been improving the opportunity, eh?"

Mr. Trohm, who had fallen back against his old well-curb, surveyed his young neighbor for the first time with a look of anger. But it vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, and he contented himself with a low bow, in which I read real grief.

This was too much for me, and I was about to open my lips with a kind phrase or two, when a flutter took place over our heads, and the two pigeons whose flight I had watched more than once during the last hour, flew down and settled upon Mr. Trohm's arm and shoulders.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, with a sudden shrinking that I hardly understood myself. And though I covered up the exclamation with as brisk a good-by as my inward perturbation would allow, that sight and the involuntary e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n I had uttered, were all I saw or heard during our hasty drive homeward.

x.x.xVII

I ASTONISH MR. GRYCE AND HE ASTONISHES ME

But as we approached the group of curious people which now filled up the whole highway in front of Mother Jane's cottage, I broke from the nightmare into which this last discovery had thrown me, and, turning to William, said with a resolute air:

"You and your sisters are not of one mind regarding these disappearances. You ascribe them to Deacon Spear, but they--whom do they ascribe them to?"

"I shouldn't think it would take a woman of your wit to answer that question."

The rebuke was deserved. I had wit, but I had refused to exercise it; my blind partiality for a man of pleasing exterior and magnetic address had prevented the cool play of my usual judgment, due to the occasion and the trust which had been imposed in me by Mr. Gryce. Resolved that this should end, no matter at what cost to my feelings, I quietly said:

"You allude to Mr. Trohm."

"That is the name," he carelessly a.s.sented. "Girls, you know, let their prejudices run away with them. An old grudge----"

"Yes," I tentatively put in; "he persecuted your mother, and so they think him capable of any wickedness."

The growl which William gave was not one of dissent.

"But I don't care what they think," said he, looking down at the heap of fruit which lay between us. "I'm Trohm's friend, and don't believe one word they choose to insinuate against him. What if he didn't like what my mother did! We didn't like it either, and----"

"William," I calmly remarked, "if your sisters knew that Silly Rufus had been found in Deacon Spear's barn they would no longer do Mr. Trohm this injustice."

"No; that would settle them; that would give me a triumph which would last long after this matter was out of the way."

"Very well, then," said I, "I am going to bring about this triumph. I am going to tell Mr. Gryce at once what we have discovered in Deacon Spear's barn."

And without waiting for his ah, yes, or no, I jumped from the buggy and made my way to the detective's side.

His welcome was somewhat unexpected. "Ah, fresh news!" he exclaimed. "I see it in your eye. What have you chanced upon, madam, in your disinterested drive into town?"

I thought I had eliminated all expression from my face, and that my words would bring a certain surprise with them. But it is useless to try to surprise Mr. Gryce.