“Yessir,” said the boy; “I took up his bag, and he gimme a quarter, just like any nice gent would. ’N’en I come downstairs, and after while the gent’s bell rang, and I went up, and he wanted ice water. He was in his shirt sleeves then, jes’ gittin’ ready for bed. So I took up the water, and he said, ‘Thank you,’ real pleasant-like, and gimme a dime. He’s a awful nice man, he is. He had his shoes off that time, ’most ready for bed. And that’s all I know about it.”
All this was nothing more nor less than Fessenden had expected. He had asked the questions merely for the satisfaction of having verbal corroboration of Tom’s own story.
With thanks to Mr. Taylor, and a more material token of appreciation to the boy, he went away.
On reaching the coroner’s office, he was told that Mr. Benson was not in. Fessenden was sorry, for he wanted to discuss the Morton episode with him. He thought of going to Lawyer Peabody’s, who would know all about Miss Van Norman’s will, but as he sauntered through one of the few streets the village possessed, he was rather pleased than otherwise to see Kitty French walking toward him.
She greeted him with apparent satisfaction, and said chummily, “Let’s walk along together and talk it over.”
Immediately coroner and lawyer faded from Rob’s mind, he willingly fell into step beside her, and they walked along the street which soon merged itself into a pleasant country road.
Fessenden told Kitty of his conversation at the inn, but she agreed that it was unimportant.
“Of course,” she said, “I suppose it was a good thing to have some one else say the same as Tom said, but as Tom wasn’t even in the house, I don’t see as he is in the mystery at all. But there’s no use of looking further for the criminal. It was Schuyler Carleton, just as sure as I stand here.”
Kitty very surely stood there. They had paused beneath an old willow tree by the side of the road, and Kitty, leaning against a rail fence, looked like a very sweet and winsome Portia, determined to mete out justice.
Though he was himself convinced that he was an unprejudiced seeker after truth, at that moment Robert Fessenden found himself very much swayed by the opinions of the pretty, impetuous girl who addressed him.