“Yes, sir; lor’, where did you find it?”
“In the grass of the carriage yard, half-way from the kitchen door to the street,” he quietly returned.
Sensation. A clue, then, at last! Something had been found which seemed to connect this mysterious murder with the outside world. Instantly the back-door assumed the chief position of interest. The candle found lying in the yard seemed to prove, not only that Hannah had left the house shortly after descending from her room, but had left it by the back-door, which we now remembered was only a few steps from the iron gate opening into the side street. But Thomas, being recalled, repeated his assertion that not only the back-door, but all the lower windows of the house, had been found by him securely locked and bolted at six o’clock that morning. Inevitable conclusion—some one had locked and bolted them after the girl. Who? Alas, that had now become the very serious and momentous question.
V. EXPERT TESTIMONY
“And often-times, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.”
Macbeth.
In the midst of the universal gloom thus awakened there came a sharp ring at the bell. Instantly all eyes turned toward the parlor door, just as it slowly opened, and the officer who had been sent off so mysteriously by the coroner an hour before entered, in company with a young man, whose sleek appearance, intelligent eye, and general air of trustworthiness, seemed to proclaim him to be, what in fact he was, the confidential clerk of a responsible mercantile house.