“You know, Mr. Bartley, this thing has me all upset. There has not been a murder in the village for years and years. Now comes this thing and the papers are full of it. What to do I do not know. And there seems to be no reason on earth why Mr. Warren was murdered.”
No one made any reply to his plaintive remark, and there came a silence for a moment which he broke by saying:
“I forgot to tell Florence that I had a long distance call from that man who is going to finish Mr. Warren's book—Patton, I think the name was. He wants her to act as his secretary, like she did for Warren; said that she knew more about his papers than any one else. But then I can get her in the morning.”
There seemed to be little more that we could do, and we started for the door; before we reached it the chief asked:
“Do you think, Mr. Bartley, that the murderer closed those windows which were found locked?”
“There seems no reason why he should have done it,” was the reply. “I would say that Mr. Warren had closed them himself. He must have been just on the verge of leaving for the house to get ready for dinner. Let us say he had closed the windows for the night when some one came. There would be no real reason why the murderer should have closed them.”
As he paused, I turned to glance at the windows. They were placed above the bookcases—one window for each of the eight sides of the building. And then, as my eyes went to the central window, I gave a gasp and then a sudden cry. For there, peering through the window, was a face—a face whose outlines were far from plain. But I could see the hat pulled low over the eyes, and the eyes themselves, which seemed to meet my own. For an instant I saw them, and as our glance met, the face disappeared. But for a second I had seen it—a man's face peering through the central window into the room.
Chapter XI.
The Gardener Speaks
My glance at the window had been but a casual thing and the appearance of the face had lasted only a second. As the face vanished, I uttered a sudden cry—one which caused Bartley to give me a quick look. Briefly I told what I had seen, and pointed at the window; then we turned and rushed for the door and out into the open air.
The library stood upon the top of a small hill, and there were no trees within a short distance. At the bottom of the hill, however, the lawn was covered with trees and shrubbery. It was dark, yet not so dark but that we should have been able to have seen any figure which ran across our vision. But save for the trees in the distance, which loomed a darker shadow against the blackness, we saw nothing. Bartley motioned with his hand and we followed him to the rear of the house.