This was a remark I could not let pass.
"Why?" I demanded. "Why do you think Mr. Trohm cherishes such animosity towards you? Has he ever——"
But Lucetta could exercise a repellent dignity when she chose. I did not finish my sentence, though I must have looked the inquiry I thought better not to put into words.
"Mr. Trohm is a man of blameless reputation," she avowed. "If he has allowed himself to cherish suspicions in our regard, he has doubtless had his reasons for it."
And with these quiet words she left me to my thoughts, and I must say to my doubts, which were all the more painful that I saw no immediate opportunity for clearing them up.
Late in the afternoon William burst in with news from the other end of the lane.
"Such a lark!" he cried. "The investigation at Deacon Spear's house was a mere farce, and I just made them repeat it with a few frills. They had dug up my cellar, and I was determined they should dig up his. Oh, the fun it was! The old fellow kicked, but I had my way. They couldn't refuse me, you know; I hadn't refused them. So that man's cellar-bottom has had a stir up. They didn't find anything, but it did me a lot of good, and that's something. I do hate Deacon Spear—couldn't hate him worse if he'd killed and buried ten men under his hearthstone."
"There is no harm in Deacon Spear," said Lucetta, quickly.
"Did they submit Mr. Trohm's house to a search also?" asked Loreen, ashamed of William's heat and anxious to avert any further display of it.
"Yes, they went through that too. I was with them. Glad I was too. I say, girls, I could have laughed to see all the comforts that old bachelor has about him. Never saw such fixings. Why, that house is as neat and pretty from top to bottom as any old maid's. It's silly, of course, for a man, and I'd rather live in an old rookery like this, where I can walk from room to room in muddy boots if I want to, and train my dogs and live in freedom like the man I am. Yet I couldn't help thinking it mighty comfortable, too, for an old fellow like him who likes such things and don't have chick or child to meddle. Why, he had pincushions on all his bureaus, and they had pins in them."