“Now go!” he vociferated; and the urchins, black and white, flew away, flinging up their heels in delight and shouting: “Bully for you, Uncle David! We’ll come again next year, not for twenty-fives but fifties.”
“I will make it dollars if I only live so long,” he muttered. And deigning now to remember the question I had put to him, he grandly remarked:
“I am going straight into town. Can I do anything for you?”
“Nothing. I thought you might like to know what awaits you there. The city is greatly stirred up. The coroner’s jury in the Jeffrey-Moore case has just brought in a verdict to the effect that suicide has not been proved. Naturally, this is equivalent to one of murder.”
“Ah!” he ejaculated, slightly taken aback for one so invariably impassive.
“And to whom is the guilt of this crime ascribed?” he presently ventured.
“There was mention of no name; but the opprobrium naturally falls on Miss Tuttle.”
“Miss Tuttle? Ah!”
“Since Mr. Jeffrey is proved to have been too far away at the time to have fired that shot, while she—”
“I am following you—”