A full confession of guilt could scarcely have been more damning.
Terry threw back his head and laughed.
"Take care, young man," he warned, "you'll be eating your words one of these days, and some of them will be pretty hard to swallow."
As we mounted the steps I nodded to several of the men whom I remembered having seen before; and they returned an interested,
"How-dy-do?
Pleasant day," as they cast a reconnoitering glance at my companion.
"Gentlemen," I said with a wave of my hand toward Terry, "let me introduce Mr. Terence Kirkwood Patten, the well-known detective of New York, who has come down to look into this matter for us."
The chairs which were tipped back against the wall came down with a thud, and an awed and somewhat uneasy shuffling of feet ensued.
"I wish to go through the cave," Terry remarked in the crisp, incisive tones a detective might be supposed to employ, "and I should like to have the same guide who conducted Mr. Crosby the time the body was discovered."
"That's Pete Moser, he's out in the back lot plowin'," a half dozen voices responded.
"Ah, thank you; will some one kindly call him?
We will wait here."
Terry proceeded with his usual ease to make himself at home.
He tipped back his hat, inclined his chair at the same dubious angle as the others, and ranged his feet along the railing.
He produced cigars from various pockets, and the atmosphere became less strained.
They were beginning to realize that detectives are made of the same flesh and blood as other people.
I gave Terry the lead—perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he took it—but it did not strike me that he set about his interviewing in a very business-like manner.
He did not so much as refer to the case we had come to investigate, but chatted along pleasantly about the weather and the crops and the difficulty of finding farm-hands.
We had not been settled very long when, to my surprise, Jim Mattison strolled out from the bar-room.
What he was doing in Luray, I could easily conjecture.
Mattison's assumption of interest in the case all along had angered me beyond measure.
It is not, ordinarily, a part of the sheriff's duties to assist the prosecution in making out a case against one of his prisoners; and owing to the peculiar relation he bore to Radnor, his interference was not only bad law but excruciatingly bad taste.
My dislike of the man had grown to such an extent that I could barely be civil to him.
It was only because it was policy on my part not to make him an active enemy that I tolerated his presence at all.
I presented Terry; though Mattison took his calling more calmly than the others, still I caught several sidewise glances in his direction, and I think he was impressed.
"Happy to know you, Mr. Patten," he remarked as he helped himself to a chair and settled it at the general angle. "This is a pretty mysterious case in some respects.
I rode over myself this morning to look into a few points and I shall be glad to have some help—though I'm afraid we'll not find anything that'll please you."
"Anything pleases me, so long as it's the truth," Terry threw off, as he studied the sheriff, with a gleam of amusement in his eyes; he was thinking, I knew, of Polly Mathers. "I hope," he added, assuming a severely professional tone, "that you haven't let a lot of people crowd into the cave and tramp up all the marks."
The landlord, who was standing in the doorway, chuckled at this.
"There ain't many people that you could drive into that there cave at the point of the pistol," he assured us. "They think it's haunted; leastways the niggers do."
"Have niggers been in the habit of going in much?"
"Oh, more or less," the sheriff returned, "when they want to make themselves inconspicuous for any reason.
I had a horse thief hide in there for two weeks last year while we were scouring the country for him.
There are so many little holes; it's almost impossible to find a man.
Tramps occasionally spend the night there in cold weather."
"Do you have many tramps around here?"
"Not a great many.
Once in a while a nigger comes along and asks for something to eat."
"More often he takes it without asking," one of the men broke in. "A week or so ago my ole woman had a cheese an' a ham an' two whole pies that she'd got ready for a church social just disappear without a word, out o' the pantry winder.
If that ain't the mark of a nigger, I miss my guess."
Terry laughed.
"If that happened in the North we should look around the neighborhood for a sick small boy."
"It wasn't no boy this time—leastways not a very small one," the man affirmed, "for that same day a pair o' my boots that I'd left in the wood house just naturally walked off by theirselves, an' I found 'em the next day at the bottom o' the pasture.
It would take a pretty sizeable fellow that my boots was too small for," he finished with a grin.
"They are a trifle conspicuous," one of the others agreed with his eyes on the feet in question.
I caught an interested look in Terry's glance as he mentally took their measure, and I wondered what he was up to; but as our messenger and Pete Moser appeared around the corner at the moment, I had no time for speculation.
Terry let his chair slip with a bang and rose to his feet.
"Ah, Mr. Moser!
I'm glad to see you," he exclaimed with an air of relief. "It's getting late," he added, looking at his watch, "and I must get this business settled as soon as possible; I have another little affair waiting for me in New York.
Bring plenty of calcium light, please.