“Fine turnout?” he interrogatively remarked.
I assented with all the surprise,—with all the wonder even—which his sublime egotism seemed to invite.
“It is the best that Downey could raise in the time I allotted him. When I really finger the money, we shall see, we shall see.”
His foot was on the carriage-step. He looked up at the west. The sun was almost down but not quite. “Have you any special business with me?” he asked, lingering with what I thought a surprising display of conscientiousness till the last ray of direct sunlight had disappeared.
I glanced up at the coachman sitting on his box as rigid as any stone.
“You may speak,” said he; “Cæsar neither hears nor sees anything but his horses when he drives me.”
The black did not wink. He was as completely at home on the box and as quiet and composed in his service as if he had driven this man for years.
“He understands his duty,” finished the master, but with no outward appearance of pride. “What have you to say to me?”
I hesitated no longer.
“Miss Tuttle is supposed to have secretly entered the Moore house on the night you summoned us. She even says she did. I know that you have sworn to having seen no one go into that house; but notwithstanding this, haven’t you some means at your disposal for proving to the police and to the world at large that she never fired that fatal shot? Public opinion is so cruel. She will be ruined whether innocent or guilty, unless it can be very plainly shown that she did not enter the library prior to going there with the police.”