The Mystery of the Locks

by E. W. Howe

Mrs. Wedge believed that he had had trouble of some kind in the place he came from, and that he was trying to hide from a few enemies, and a great many friends, in Davy's Bend; for Mrs. Wedge could not believe that anyone would select Davy's Bend as a place of residence except under peculiar circumstances; but she always came to the same conclusion,—that Allan Dorris was in the right, whatever his difficulty had been. She watched him narrowly from day to day, but he never gave her reason to change her mind—he was in the right, and in the goodness of her heart she defended him, as she went about her work.

"Were it Betty's father come back to me, instead of a stranger of whom I know nothing," the good woman would say aloud, as she swept, or dusted, or scoured in her little house, "I could not find less fault with him than I do, or be more fond of him. I know something about men, and Allan Dorris is a gentleman; more than that, he is honest, and I don't believe a word you say."

"Grandmother," the child would inquire in wonder, "who are you talking to?"

"Oh, these people's tongues," Mrs. Wedge would reply, with great earnestness, looking at Betty as though she were a guilty tongue which had just been caught in the act of slandering worthy people. "I have no patience with them. Even Mr. Dorris is not free from their slander, and I am tired of it."

"But who says anything against Mr. Dorris, grandmother?"

Sure enough! Who had accused him? No one, save his friend Mrs. Wedge, unless his coming to Davy's Bend was an accusation; but she continued to defend him, and declared before she went to sleep every night; "I'll think no more about it; he is a worthy man, of course."

But whatever occupied his thoughts on the evening in question, Allan Dorris was not displeased to hear an announcement, from the speaking-tube behind the door, of visitors, for they were uncommon enough; and going to it, a voice came to him from the depths announcing that Silas and Tug were at the gate, and would come up if he had no objection. Pulling the lever down, which opened the gate, he went down to admit them at the door, and they came back with him.

During his residence in the place he had met the two men frequently, for they took credit to themselves that he was there at all, since his coming seemed to please the people (for it gave them something to talk about, even if they did not admire him); and when he returned to his house in the evening, he often met the strange pair loitering about the gate. He had come to think well of them, and frequently invited them to walk in; but though they apparently wanted to accept his invitation, they acted as though they were afraid to: perhaps they feared he would lose the little respect he already entertained for them on acquaintance. But they had evidently concluded to make him a formal call now, induced by friendliness and curiosity, for they were smartened up a little; and it had evidently been arranged that Silas should do the honors, for Tug kept crowding him to the front as they walked up the stairs.

Apparently Tug did not expect a very warm reception at The Locks, for he lagged behind, and sighted at Allan Dorris with his peculiar eyes, as though he had half a mind to try a shot at him; and when he reached the landing from the level of which the doors opened into the rooms of the second story, he looked eagerly and curiously around, as if recalling the night when he traced the shadow there, but which had escaped him.

Allan Dorris invited both men into the apartment he usually occupied, and there was a freedom in his manner that surprised them both. The pair had decided to visit him from a curiosity that had grown out of their experience with the shadow; and although they expected to find him stern and silent, and angered at their presence, he was really in good humor, and seemed glad to see them; perhaps he was so lonely that he would have welcomed a visit from a ghost. They both noticed that the ragged beard which he had worn on his face when he first arrived was now absent; for he was clean shaven, and this made him appear ten years younger. He looked a good deal more like a man in every way than he did on the night of his arrival, when he sat moping in the hotel office; and Silas and Tug both wondered at the change, but they were of one mind as to his clean face; it was a disguise.