Darrin said, “You can’t blame him. It’s no joke to kill a man.”
Motley nodded his agreement. “It made a big change in Evered,” he repeated.
Darrin’s interest in Evered had not been sufficiently marked to attract attention, for Evered was a figure of interest to all the countryside. Furthermore, there was talk that Darrin and Ruth MacLure liked each other well; and the town thought it natural that Darrin should be curious as to the man who might be his brother-in-law. Everyone knew that Ruth and John Evered had been more than friends. There was a friendly and curious interest in what looked like a contest between Darrin and John.
This night at Will’s store Darrin had little to say. He bought paper and envelopes from Will and wrote two letters at the desk in Will’s office; and he mailed them, with a special-delivery stamp upon each one. That was a thing not often done in Fraternity; and Will noticed the addresses upon the letters. To Boston men, both of them.
Afterward, Darrin sat about the store for a while, and then set off along the road toward Evered’s farm. Zeke Pitkin gave him a lift for a way; and Darrin remembered that Evered had named this man, and he said to Zeke: “You saw Evered’s bull break out, that day the beast killed Mary Evered, didn’t you?”
Zeke said yes; and he told the tale, coloring it with the glamor of tragedy which it would always have in his eyes. And he told Darrin—though Darrin had heard this more than once before—how Evered had killed his, Zeke’s, bull with a knife thrust in the neck, a day or two before the tragedy. “That same heavy knife of his,” he said. “The one he killed Dave Riggs with.”
Darrin asked, “Still uses it—to butcher with?”
“Yes, sir,” said Zeke. “I’ve seen him stick more’n one pig with that old knife in the last ten year.”
Darrin laughed a little harshly. “Not very sentimental, is he?”
“There ain’t a human feeling in the man,” Pitkin declared.