The hardy detective was out of the door before the last word of this scornful repetition had left his lips.
He was gone an hour. When he returned he looked very much excited.
"Well!" he ejaculated, breathlessly, "I have had an experience."
Mr. Byrd gave him a look, saw something he did not like in his face, and moved uneasily in his chair.
"You have?" he retorted. "What is it? Speak."
"Do you know," the other resumed, "that the hardest thing I ever had to do was to keep my head down in the hut the other day, and deny myself a look at the woman who could bear herself so bravely in the midst of a scene so terrible. Well," he went on, "I have to-day been rewarded for my self-control. I have seen Miss Dare."
Horace Byrd could scarcely restrain his impatience.
"Where?" he demanded. "How? Tell a fellow, can't you?"
"I am going to," protested Hickory. "Cannot you wait a minute? I had to wait forty. Well," he continued more pleasantly as he saw the other frown, "I went to Professor Darling's. There is a girl there I have talked to before, and I had no difficulty in seeing her or getting a five minutes' chat with her at the back-gate. Odd how such girls will talk! She told me in three minutes all I wanted to know. Not that it was so much, only——"
"Do get on," interrupted Mr. Byrd. "When did Miss Dare come to the house on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, and what did she do while there?"