Chapter XIII: A Stab in the Dark

Squire Bodley adjourned the inquest for another week, in the hope that there might be discovered in the interim some further evidence, and his sweltering office was quickly cleared of jury, witnesses, and auditors, all save one man, the stranger to whom he had whispered while Peter Van Deust was on the stand. That person, a ruddy, smooth-faced man of medium height, and probably forty or forty-five years of age, with nothing distinctive about his appearance except, perhaps, a pair of very keen gray eyes, was the detective who had been sent from New York to apply his sagacity to ferreting out, if possible, the robber and assassin of Jacob Van Deust.

"Well, Mr. Turner," said the Squire, lighting his one remaining candle by the flickering flame of the last surviving of the three that had melted and guttered down to the sockets of the candlesticks, "I guess this will be light enough for us to see to talk a little by. What do you think of the case?"

"It isn't so blind as some I've had hold of, and cleared up, too; but it is dark enough, nevertheless. All I can see that we may say we think we know is, that the old man was killed, probably after 11:30 or 12 o'clock at night, by a burglar who got into his window by means of a jimmy and who, after killing him and robbing the premises, escaped by the Babylon road, most likely."

"I neglected to bring it out when he was on the stand, but Peter has told me that some other articles besides the money are missing; a set of garnet jewellery belonging to his mother that Jacob always kept in his room; an old silver watch and a heavy square onyx seal, with a foul anchor cut on one side of it. None of them of any great value."

"It's just as well you didn't mention them; just as well or better. Such things, if looked for quietly, and nothing said about them, are sometimes valuable clues. And it is well you didn't ask about the lawyer from New York. All these are things we will have to look into quietly. There's nothing like doing things quietly. The great trouble about inquests, generally is, that they bring out the very things which put criminals on their guard, and so make the detective's work all the harder--sometimes even baffle him altogether."

"Squire, are you busy?" demanded a sharp nasal voice.

The two men looking up, and shading the candlelight from their eyes with their hands, saw standing in the door a tall, thin, scraggy-looking woman, wearing a sun-bonnet.

"No, not particularly. Walk in, Mrs. Thatcher, walk in. What can I do for you?" replied the Squire.

The woman came forward with shuffling, hesitating steps; paused, made a furtive attempt to poke up out of sight the wisp of unkempt sandy hair, dangling in its accustomed place on the back of her neck; and finally answered, with a doubtful look at the stranger:

"Well, I had something to tell you, private-like, about that murder."

"Indeed! Well, you can speak right out before this gentleman. He is helping me to inquire into it. But why, if you have anything to tell, did you not come up to the inquest?"

"I didn't care to speak before so many folks; and I thought it would be better to tell you quietly."

"And what is it you have to tell me?"

"I expect, Squire, I know who killed Jake Van Deust."

"The deuce you do!" exclaimed the detective, bouncing in his seat.

"Yes, sir; I was told what the Squire said a week ago to-day about suspicious strangers in the neighborhood, and I thought to myself, I know of one, and I ought to tell him."

"Well?"

"Well, it's a young man who used to live in this neighborhood, but who disappeared--ran away, I guess, for some reason best known to himself--about three years ago or a little better. He's been back lately, hiding around in the woods and meeting a foolish girl--"

"Aha!" interrupted the detective, with a chuckle, and rubbing his hands; "if there's a girl in the case, we'll have him, sure."

"Yes, sir, a foolish girl, who don't know the sin and the shame of what she's a-doing. And as far as I can find out, he has kept himself out of sight of everybody but her. But he was about the neighborhood late on the night that Jake Van Deust was killed--that I'm sure of; and met the girl that night--I know he did."

"And who is the girl?"

"My niece, Mary Wallace, sir. The more's the pity!"

"And the young man?"

"His name is Dorman Hackett."

Squire Bodley gave a gasp of surprise. He remembered Dorn Hackett as a strong, handsome orphan lad who had grown up almost to manhood in the neighborhood; a young fellow with a fine, frank, courageous face, and of whom he had never before heard an evil word; but he remembered, too, now that he came to think of it, that he had not seen the young fellow for a long time; and sighed to think that even the best boys sometimes grow up to be very wicked men when exposed to the temptations of vicious life in the great cities, and it was possible that Dorn Hackett, like many others, "had gone to the bad."

"You say that this young man has been away for three years?" asked the detective.

"He hasn't dared to let anybody here, except that girl, see his face for that long."

"And of course you know nothing of where he has been, and what he has been doing all that time?"

"No; how should I? Loafing around New York, I dare say. Such characters mostly goes there."

"Around New York, eh? If he's a New York thief, I'll be sure to know him. If we only knew what he's been doing."

"What would a fellow be likely to be doing who has no trade, and no money, and no home, and no respectable friends, and nobody to see to him?" snapped Aunt Thatcher.

"He might have told your niece."

"If he did, she wouldn't be likely to tell me. It's as much as I could do to find out that he was sneaking around here in the woods, late on the night Jake Van Deust was killed."

"She met him that night, did she?"

"Yes, she did."

"What kind of a looking person in this Hackett?"

"A big, ugly, red-headed fellow, with a face like a bull-dog."

Squire Bodley smiled gently to himself, thinking how such a description would be apt to assist the detective. He had penetration enough to discern that there was some animus in the woman's mind stronger than a mere desire to aid the ends of justice; but said nothing about it at the time, feeling a little timid about seeming to interfere in the work of the professional detective.

When Mr. Turner and the squire had both thanked Mrs. Thatcher for her "valuable information," she took her departure, and the two men were left alone to discuss the course to be pursued. Squire Bodley had a very good opinion of Mary Wallace; and if he had had his own way would have directly questioned her about her lover; but against that course the detective strenuously protested. Direct ways are never the chosen methods of the professional fishers of men.

"By no means," said he. "Let the girl know that her lover is suspected and she will be sure to get word to him somehow and he'll be off. Not a word about it to anybody. Leave me to work it out my own way, and my name isn't Richard Turner if I don't soon lay my hand on the shoulder of Dorman Hackett."