“Then you shall have it explained,” Cuthbert Edwards answered. “I called on Miss Silber last Sunday, and it is because of what I learned there that I want Winton to have nothing more to do with her. I went to Miss Silber on Sunday, Mr. Trant, feeling that I had been too hasty on Thursday. I offered her an apology and was reasoning with her when I heard suddenly, in an upper room, the same noises that had so disturbed the quiet of my office on Thursday afternoon!”
“You mean the hammering?” asked Trant.
“Precisely, Mr. Trant; the hammering! If you had heard that sound yourself, you would know that it is a very definite and distinctive blow, given according to some intentional arrangement. I no sooner heard it and saw the uneasiness it again caused in Miss Silber, than I became certain that the same disreputable man who had been to see her at my office was then housed in her very home. I insisted, as she was my son’s promised wife, on searching the house.”
“Did you find him?” Trant inquired sharply.
“No, I did not, Mr. Trant, though I went into every room and opened every closet. I found only what appeared to be the usual inmates of the house—Miss Silber’s father and the woman who keeps house for her.”
“Miss Silber’s father! Has Miss Silber a father?” Trant interrupted.
“He is hardly worth mentioning, Mr. Trant,” the younger Edwards explained. “He must have suffered at some time from a brain trouble that has partly deprived him of his faculties, I believe. Neither he nor the housekeeper, who is not in Eva’s confidence, is likely to be able to help us in this matter.”
“The man may have slipped out of the house unseen,” suggested Trant.
“Quite impossible,” Cuthbert Edwards asserted. “Miss Silber lived in a little house west of Ravenswood. There are very few houses, none within at least a quarter of a mile of her. The ground is flat, and no one could have got away without being seen by me.”
“Your story so far is certainly very peculiar,” the psychologist commented, “and it gains interest with every detail. Are you certain it was not this second interview with your father”—he turned again to the younger man—“that made Miss Silber refuse you?”