“You seem to have got a pretty good look at him.”
“Wall, ye see he took the seat two in front o’ me, and every time I woke up—say, them air seats hain’t made to sleep comfortable in, be they—thar he was, till all of a sudden I woke up an’ he warn’t thar.”
“Then you don’t know where he got off,” Trafford said, keeping the disappointment out of his voice.
“No. Ye see, when we pulled out of ’Gusta, he was thar, an’ I didn’t wake up ag’in till we got to Brunswick, an’ he warn’t thar. I meant to see whar he went to, but arter ’Gusta, I guessed he must be from Portland and that’s whar I got left.”
“I suppose you hear from Millbank—from Oldbeg, for instance.”
“Wall,” he said, blushing a fiery red, “Jonathan hain’t no great hand to write: but I du hear sometimes. Say, du you s’pose a body could ’a’ heerd that thar shot from Parlin’s house down onto Canaan Street?”
“I don’t know,” said the detective carelessly, hiding his eagerness. “A still night, it might be; why?”
“’Cause, a letter I got says that thar night she’d jest got to sleep when she woke up sudden, as if she’d heerd so’thing like a shot. She got up, but didn’t hear nothin’ more an’ so went back to bed. But the next mornin’ she guessed ’twas the shot she heerd from Parlin’s.”
“Did she say what time it was?”
“Nope: only she’d ben asleep about half a hour, an’ thet night she didn’t get to bed ’fore twelve o’clock. Fact, I guess she didn’t go till she heerd the train leave.”