“I beat you to it,” said the golden youth; and then, whimsically: “What do you know now more than you knew before you knew so little as you know now?”
Tregarvon cast himself down upon the porch-step. “I’ll tell you, after a bit. Did you find out anything new?”
“Nothing very conclusive. Item number one is that there are only two horses in the Highmount stables; neither of them white, and neither with a broken toe-calk on the left hind foot.”
Tregarvon smiled wearily. “More negative information; it’s always negative.”
“Yes; and you may put into the same basket the item that no one of the half-dozen people I asked knew of any white horse owned on the mountain. But I picked up one little pointer that belongs in the other basket—the positive. I had luncheon at Highmount—upon Mrs. Caswell’s very pressing invitation. At table, Miss Richardia wanted to know how you came to plant your drilling-machine right in the middle of the old burying-ground.”
“What’s that?” said Tregarvon. “You don’t mean to say that the glade is a graveyard!”
“It seems that it used to be, many years ago—for the slaves. You will remember that you remarked the sunken spots in the only bit of soft earth there is, and wondered what made them. They are graves. Do you suppose Rucker would sleep any better to-night than he did last night if he knew that? If he had known it last night, perhaps it might have accounted for some of his restlessness. But I’m drifting from the point, which is that Miss Richardia’s question betrayed her: she was the young woman who drove with the man behind the white horse; otherwise she would not have known about the location of the drilling plant in the glade.”
“That doesn’t follow,” Tregarvon objected. “Some one might have told her. But let that part of it go. Did you discover anything else?”
“Yes. After school hours I took Miss Farron, Miss Longstreet, and the French teacher out for a spin in the car. Miss Richardia said she couldn’t go because she had another engagement. We made a rather long round to the south and came back to Highmount by a road which parallels the western brow of the mountain. Are you paying attention?”
“Breathless attention,” said Tregarvon ironically. “Joy-ride stories always make me sit up. Go on.”