She only smirked without replying.
“Why not? Doesn’t he come for lunch?”
She stuck her second finger in the roof of her mouth and looked away.
“Not always, he don’t. Not to-day, anyhow.”
“Where is he?” I intended to follow him to his lair, wherever it was, but Isabella seemed to think I was prying.
“I ain’t to say where he went,” she answered, twisting one bare foot over the other. “He says if anybody asts me I don’ know.”
“And don’t you?” I could not resist.
But she only stuck her finger further into her mouth until I was afraid that she would choke. I saw that I was tempting her to be unfaithful to a trust, and dropped the matter. The judge must have gone off down the cape to a séance, leaving orders with Isabella to uphold the majesty of the law.
My next stop was the Sailor’s Rest.
I hoped to find Alf there. He would not be so stanch an ally as the judge in this emergency, because he believed in ghosts himself and could scarcely be convincing in his reassurances. But he might be persuaded to break open those doors for me, and I would repay him by promising to look over all the antique correspondence tucked away in the pigeonholes of the desk for stamps. There might well be some rare ones left at the House of the Five Pines. I opened the office door carefully this time, remembering not to raise a draft that would blow his collection away.