“I hev s’arched fur you-uns fur days,” Haines replied, a strange compassion in his eyes, contemplating which Lucien Royce felt his blood go cold. “But the Simses deceived me ez ter whar ye be; they never told me till ter-night, an’ then I hed ter tell ’em why I wanted you-uns.”
“Why?” demanded Royce, spellbound by the look in the man’s eyes, and almost overmastered by the revulsion of feeling in the last moment, the quaking of an unnamed terror at his heart.
Nevertheless, with his acute and versatile faculties he heard the clamors of the recall still thundering in the auditorium, he noted the passing of the facetiously bedight figures for the farce. He was even aware of glances of curiosity from one or two of the scene-shifters, and had the prudence to draw Haines, who heard naught and saw only the face before him, into a corner.
“Why?” reiterated Royce. “Why do you want me?”
“Bekase,” said Haines, “Peter Knowles seen ye fling them queer shoes an’ belt an’ clothes inter the quicklime, an’ drawed the idee ez ye hed slaughtered somebody bodaciously, an’ kivered ’em thar too.”
The juggler reddened slightly at the mention of the jaunty attire and the thought of its sacrifice, but he was out of countenance before the sentence was concluded, and gravely dismayed.
“Oh, pshaw!” he exclaimed, seeking to reassure himself. “They would have to prove that somebody is dead to make that charge stick.”
Then he realized the seriousness of such an accusation, the necessity of accounting for himself before a legal investigation, and this, to escape one false criminal charge, must needs lead to a prosecution for another equally false. The alternative of flight presented itself instantly. “I can explain later, if necessary, as well as now,” he thought. “I’m a thousand times obliged to you for telling me,” he added aloud, but to his amazement and terror the man was wringing his hands convulsively and his face was contorted with the agony of a terrible expectation.
“Don’t thank me,” he said huskily. Then, with a sudden hope, “Is thar enny way out’n this place ’ceptin’ yon?” he nodded his head toward the ballroom on the other side of the partition.
“No, none,” gasped Royce, his nerves beginning to comprehend the situation, while it still baffled his brain.