"Was the cupboard unlocked?"
"Oh, yes; any of the house servants could have got at it."
"Well," said Terry, poking his head from the windows for a view of the ground beneath, "that's all there seems to be here; we might as well go down."
We boosted up the two meal bags again, and started back toward the house.
Terry's eyes studied his surroundings keenly, whether for the sake of the story he was planning to write or the mystery he was trying to solve, I could only conjecture.
His glance presently fixed on the stables where old Uncle Jake was visible sitting on an upturned pail in the doorway.
"You go on," he ordered, "and have 'em put dinner or supper or whatever you call it on the table, and I'll be back in three minutes.
I want to see what that old fellow over there has to say in regard to the ghost."
It was fifteen minutes later that Terry reappeared.
"Well," I inquired as I led the way to the dining-room, "did you get any news of the ghost?"
"Did I!
The Society for Psychical Research ought to investigate this neighborhood.
They'd find more spirits in half an hour than they've found in their whole past history."
Terry's attention during supper was chiefly directed toward Nancy's fried chicken and beat biscuits.
When he did make any remarks he addressed them to Solomon rather than to me.
Solomon was loquacious enough in general, but he had his own ideas of table decorum, and it was evident that the friendly advances of my guest considerably scandalized him.
When the coffee and cigars were brought on, Terry appeared to be on the point of inviting Solomon to sit down and have a cigar with us; but he thought better of it, and contented himself with talking to the old man across my shoulder.
He confined his questions to matters concerning the household and the farm, and Solomon in vain endeavored to confine his replies to "yes, sah," "no, sah," "jes' so, sah!"
In five minutes he was well started, and it would have required a flood-gate to stop him.
In the midst of it Terry rose and dismissing me with a brief,
"I'll join you in the library later; I want to talk to Solomon a few minutes," he bowed me out and shut the door.
I was amused rather than annoyed by this summary dismissal.
Terry had been in the house not quite two hours, and I am sure that a third person, looking on, would have picked me out for the stranger.
Terry's way of being at home in any surroundings was absolutely inimitable.
Had he ever had occasion to visit Windsor Castle I am sure that he would have set about immediately making King Edward feel at home.
He appeared in the library in the course of half an hour with the apology:
"I hope you didn't mind being turned out.
Servants are sometimes embarrassed, you know, about telling the truth before any of the family."
"You didn't get much truth out of Solomon," I retorted.
"I don't know that I did," Terry admitted with a laugh. "There are the elements of a good reporter in Solomon; he has an imagination which I respect.
The Gaylords appear to be an interesting family with hereditary tempers.
The ghost, I hear, beat a slave to death, and to pay for it is doomed to pace the laurel walk till the day of judgment."
"That's the story," I nodded, "and the beating is at least authentic."
"H'm!" Terry frowned. "And Solomon tells me tales of the Colonel himself whipping the negroes—there can't be any truth in that?"
"But there is," I said. "He didn't hesitate to strike them when he was angry.
I myself saw him beat a nigger a few days ago," and I recounted the story of the chicken thief.
"So!
A man of that sort is likely to have enemies he doesn't suspect.
How about Cat-Eye Mose?
Was Colonel Gaylord in the habit of whipping him?"
"Often," I nodded, "but the more the Colonel abused Mose, the fonder Mose appeared to grow of the Colonel."
"It's a puzzling situation," said Terry pacing up and down the room with a thoughtful frown. "Well!" he exclaimed with a sudden access of energy, "I suppose we might as well sit down and tackle it."
He took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves; then shoving everything back from one end of the big library table, he settled himself in a chair and motioned me to one opposite.
"Tomorrow morning," he said as he took out from his pockets a roll of newspaper clippings and a yellow copy pad, "we will drive over and have a look at that cave; it ought to tell its own story.
But in the meantime—" he looked up with a laugh—"suppose we use our brains a little."
I did not resent the inference.
Terry was his old impudent self, and I was so relieved at having him there, assuming the responsibility, that he might have wiped the floor with me and welcome.
"Our object," he commenced, "is not to prove your cousin innocent of the murder, but to find out who is guilty.
The most logical method would be to study the scene of the crime first, but as that does not appear feasible until morning, we will examine such data as we have.
On the face of it the only two who appear to be implicated are Radnor and this Cat-Eye Mose—who is a most picturesque character," Terry added, the reporter for the moment getting ahead of the detective.