From the far side of the mansion came the sound of a door opening and closing again. Moving quickly along the sumac-fringed course of the creek, Kent made a detour which gave him view of a side entrance, and had barely time to efface himself in the shrubbery when a light wagon, with a spirited horse between the shafts, turned briskly out into the road. Kent, well sheltered, caught one brief sufficient glimpse of the occupant. It was Doctor Breed. The medical officer looked, as always, nerve-beset; but there was a greedy smile on his lips.
Kent"s mouth puckered. He took a deep breath of musical inspiration-and exhaled it in painful noiselessness, flattening himself amid the greenery, as he saw a man emerge from the rear of Hedgerow House. The man was Gansett Jim. He carried a pick and a spade and walked slowly.
Presently he disappeared in the willow-shaded place of mounds. The sound of his toil came, m.u.f.fled, to the ears of the hidden man.
Cautiously Kent worked his way, now in the stream, now through the heavy growth on the banks, until he gained the roadway. Once there he went forward to the front gate of Hedgerow House. The bricked sidewalk runs, thence, straight and true to the rose-bowered square porch which is the mansion"s main entry. Kent paused for the merest moment. His gaze rested on the heavy black door. Heavier and blacker against the woodwork a pendant waved languidly in the faint breeze.
To the normal human being, the grisly insignium of death over a portal is provocative of anything rather than mirth. But Chester Kent, viewing the c.r.a.pe on Hedgerow House, laughed as he turned to the open road.
CHAPTER XIII-LOOSE ENDS
Meditation furrowed the brow of Lawyer Adam Bain. Customarily an easy-minded partic.i.p.ant in the placid affairs of his community, he had been shaken out of his rut by the case in which Kent had enlisted him, and in which he had, thus far, found opportunity for little more than thought.
"n.o.body vs. Sedgwick," grumbled he. "Public opinion vs. Sedgwick," he amended. "How"s a self-respecting lawyer going to earn a fee out of that? And Len Schlager standing over the grave of the _corpus delicti_ with a warrant against searching, so to speak, in his hand. For that matter, this Professor Kent worries me more than the sheriff."
A sharp humming rose in the air, and brought the idle counselor to his window, whence he beheld the prime author of his bewilderment descending from a car. A minute later the two men were sitting with their feet on one desk, a fairly good sign of mutual respect and confidence.
"Blair?" said Lawyer Bain. "No, I don"t know him, not even to see. Took Hogg"s Haven, didn"t he?"
"Then he doesn"t use this post-office?"
"No. Might use any one of half a dozen. See here." He drew a county map from a shelf. "Here"s the place. Seven railroad stations on three different roads, within ten miles of it. Annalaka would be way out of his reach."
"Yet Gansett Jim seems to be known here."
"Oh; is it Blair that the Indian works for? I never knew. Closer"n a deaf mute with lockjaw, he is. Well, I expect the reason he comes here occasionally is that it"s the nearest license town.
""Lo! the poor Injun when he wants a drink Will walk ten miles as easy as you"d wink.""
"Do you know most of the post-offices around here?"
"There isn"t but one postmaster within twenty miles that I don"t call by his first name, and she"s a postmistress."
"Then you could probably find out by telephone where the Blair family get their mail."
"Easy!"
"And perhaps what newspapers they take."
"H"m! Yes, I guess so."
"Try it, as soon as you get back."
"Back from where?"
"Back from the medical officer"s place. I think he must have returned by this time."
"You want to see Tim Breed?"
"No; just his records. Burial permits, I suppose, are a matter of public record."
"Yes. All you"ve got to do is to go and ask for "em. You won"t need me."
"Regrettable as his bad taste is," said Kent with a solemn face, "I fear that Doctor Breed doesn"t regard me with that confidence and esteem which one reads of in illuminated resolutions."
"And you want me as an accelerator, eh?" smiled the lawyer. "All right.
It"s the Jane Doe permit you"re after, I suppose."
"Which?"
"Jane Doe. They buried the corpse from Lonesome Cove under that name.
Unidentified dead, you know."
"Of course! Of course!" a.s.sented Kent.
"If you"re looking for anything queer in the official paper you won"t find it."
"You"ve examined it yourself?"
"Yes."
"Good! Nevertheless, I"d like to see the record."
Together they went to the medical officer"s quarters. Doctor Breed had come in fifteen minutes before. Without preliminary, Lawyer Bain said:
"I want to see that Jane Doe certificate again."
"Aren"t you afraid of wearin" out the ink on it, Adam?" retorted the other with a furtive grin.
"And I," said Chester Kent in his suavest manner, "venture to trouble you to show me the certificate in the case of Wilfrid Blair."
Something like a spasm shook the lineaments of Doctor Breed"s meager face. "Blair!" he repeated. "How did you know-" He stopped short.
"How did I know that Wilfrid Blair is dead?" Kent finished for him.
"Why, there has been time enough, hasn"t there?"
The physician"s hands clawed nervously at his straggling hair.
"Time enough?" he murmured. "Time enough? I"m only just back from the Blair place myself."
"News travels faster than a horse," observed Kent.
"It don"t travel as fast as all that," retorted the medical officer, and shut his teeth on the sentence as if he could have bitten the tongue that spoke it.
"Ah," commented Kent negligently. "Then he died within two hours or so?"