"Well, it won't be the Hambleton Selectmen, anyway. The three of them were pale when they discovered how close they'd been to spending a bunch of money unnecessarily."
They finished their lunch without the loss of much time, the detective setting the pace. Once into a case, he could be as patient and plodding as an ox, but the preliminaries found him restless and impatient. He detested the inevitable gathering of masses and masses of information that must subsequently be pulled to pieces and mulled over until the most of it had been discarded and the important residue determined. It all took so much time—precious time that the criminal might be using to strengthen his own position.
"Let's have a look at the place marked 'X' in the picture," he suggested, rising. "Kitchen garden, wasn't it? That means the rear of the house. Let's go out this back way, through the kitchen. Sometimes it pays to look the servants over in a casual fashion before having them on the mat. They're less apt to be on guard."
He bustled cheerfully into the kitchen, asked a question or two about the exact location of the crime, and left the house by the rear door, Krech close behind.
"One Irish cook," summarized the detective when they were safely out of hearing. "Fat and fifty, good-natured and violent by turns. One rather pretty girl, a housemaid from the white cap, frightened, been crying, inclined to be hysterical. Old Bates, the butler. Last, one gaunt, tall, vinegary, nondescript female. Who's the nondescript, Krech?"
"Search me. Here's the place."
Creighton took one look and groaned. Whatever precautions the police might have taken in the first stages of their investigation had evidently been relaxed thereafter. The garden might have been the scene of a recent rodeo. A mob of curious Hambletonians had held high revel in it from one end to the other.
"That ought to be classed as criminal negligence," snorted the detective, turning away.
"It's no use to you?" asked his friend disappointedly.
"Not for the moment. If I were nature-faking a book on Africa I could run a picture of it as an elephant's playground, but that's all." He stopped and gazed at the house long enough to memorize the windows that commanded a view of the garden. "No use going back there, now," he decided. "Chuck full of a man named Norvallis. Suppose we drop down to the tannery. Not far, is it? Where's that short cut through the woods in which Varr first saw his monk?"