“Was that all?” he asked, looking at me keenly. “Try to think. Mr. Tunstall is a very clever man. A silly note like the one sent him wouldn’t have got him out here unless he had some very definite object in coming, and was hoping for an excuse to do so.”
“I don’t remember anything else, sir,” I said, making a desperate effort at recollection. “Oh, yes; he asked if I’d heard mother say anything about trying to break the will, and I told him that I had heard her tell you that she wouldn’t think of doing so—that if she couldn’t get the place the way grandaunt provided, she didn’t want it at all.”
Mr. Chester’s lips tightened, and he looked grimly at the boys.
“The note wasn’t such a lie, after all,” he said, in a voice very stern. “Mr. Tunstall has learned something very decidedly to his advantage.”
Chapter XI
The Shadow in the Orchard
So I had aided the enemy! I had thought myself clever enough to match my wits against his, and I had lost! It was a bitter reflection!
I had underestimated his strength, had dared to face him when I should have run away, and he had defeated me ignominiously. He had learned from me exactly what he wished to learn, and now he could rest secure until the month was up. I could guess how the thought that we might, after all, carry the matter to the courts had worried him—his very anxiety went far to prove that we might really be able to set aside the will.
One thing was clear enough. Silas Tunstall was not at all the ignorant boor that I had thought him. His ungainliness, his drawl, his slip-shod utterance were all assumed—for what? The answer seemed evident enough. They had been assumed to aid him in practising the deceptions of his business as a spiritualistic medium. What a belief-compelling thing it was for him to be able to cast aside, whenever he wished, the uncouth husk in which he was usually enveloped. In the gloom of the seance, what sitter would suspect that that clear voice could be Silas Tunstall’s, or that crisp and perfect enunciation his? Oh, it was evident enough; and I had walked straight into the trap he had set for me!
These were the pleasing reflections with which I had to comfort myself as we walked back toward the house together. I had played the fool—the boys were not to blame; it was I alone! If I had only had sense enough to hold my tongue!
The sound of wheels on the drive brought me out of my thoughts, and we reached the front door just as a buggy drew up before it.