"I take it," he was saying as Lucia entered and Lloyd rose and offered her a chair—the lawyer glanced up from where he was comfortably ensconced with his cigar in a rocking-chair before the blazing fire, "Good-evening, Miss Laniston—I trust you are fully recovered from the ill effects of these unlucky excitements—I take it that the man met the horseback party merely by accident, and having some deep and murderous grudge against Mr. Lloyd——"
"Someone in the rescue party," interrupted Frank, "when the body was found and identified, was saying that his sweetheart had thrown him over, and that he suspected that it was the influence of her foolish admiration of Mr. Lloyd, whom she had seen at the Street Fair, where she danced."
"And that's arrant nonsense," Lloyd instantly asseverated. "She did a song-and-dance turn, like any other coryphée, and had no more consideration for me than the Flying lydy or the Fat lydy who perform in their own interests."
"At all events," Mr. Dalton said, "this Eugene Binley thirsted for your blood. He was unarmed—which surprises me very much——" Mr. Dalton fitted the tips of his fingers accurately together as he pieced out his bits of evidence—"really surprises me. These mountaineers, if to all appearances without weapons, usually carry what they call a shooting iron in the leg of their long boots. He could not kill a professional athlete like Mr. Lloyd in a fist-fight; he could not probably get an opportunity to push him when off his guard into an abyss—though this is what I think he contemplated when he refused to accompany Mr. Laniston back for the ladies or to wait alone."
"That idea occurred to Mr. Jardine—after we had remembered seeing the man in disguise at the Fair and in the Ferris Wheel," said Ruth, who, being far more phlegmatic than Lucia, and having been tortured by fears for her relatives rather than physical hardships and the sight of a hideous deed, had readily recovered her equanimity when their safety was assured. "That's why we gave them so little time to return before we rode off and raised the community as we went."
"This man's plan was well laid and evidently was evolved almost on the spur of the moment." Mr. Dalton continued his research into the motives of the deed. "He bethought himself that the moonshiners would not stay their hand should a presumable spy be detected looking in upon their illicit still. Thus he led Mr. Lloyd to their lair within their view. He must have had a grudge at the moonshiners too, for he had provided himself in Mr. Laniston and Miss Lucia with witnesses to the nefarious deed. What a precious shifty rascal this was—committing a murder by proxy!"
"A wonderful escape for Mr. Lloyd," said Mrs. Laniston. "And where do you go, Mr. Lloyd, from New Helvetia?" She was seeking to change the subject on Lucia's account. The young girl was looking very pallid, though delicately lovely in a gown of white voilé over white silk. She wore a belt of old gold brocade which had as a clasp a fine old topaz, a bit of the antiquated jewelry that recent fashions have caused to be delved out of old cases and brought to light in new settings. This had been a great brooch, and three other stones, similar but smaller—once the ear-rings and bracelet-clasp of the same set,—were now mounted in a "dog-collar" of filigree gold about her delicate neck. In her hair Lloyd noted a cluster of golden-rod, a relic of the ride to-day.
"Where am I going?"—Lloyd repeated the question—"as soon as I can get away from the coroner's jury I shall go to my own house—I am due there on the tenth at any rate."
"To receive your cousin Mr. Thomas Jennico Lloyd, I suppose?" said the gentleman who was well acquainted in Glaston and who had manifested much interest in the transformed showman.
"And his wife and his daughter, Miss Geraldine Lloyd."