"You have been there? Searched the room and the stable?"
"Thoroughly, just as soon as it was light enough to see."
"And found——"
"Nothing; not even a clue."
"The man is lying dead in that heap. She, too, perhaps. We'll have to put the screws on Jake. A conspiracy like this must be unearthed. Show me the rascal."
"He's in a most careless mood. He doesn't think his master and mistress perished in the fire."
"Careless, eh? Well, we'll see. I know that sort."
But when a few minutes later he came to confront the clerk he saw that his task was not likely to prove quite so easy as his former experience had led him to expect. Save for a slight nervous trembling of limb and shoulder—surely not unnatural after such a night—Jake bore himself with very much the same indifferent ease he had shown the day before.
Doctor Golden surveyed him with becoming sternness.
"At what time did this fire start?" he asked.