Hercules scratched his head and shifted his corn cob pipe to the other side of his mouth. “Dat shutter’s bin up a good many years, Mis’ ’Lizbeth,” he quavered.
“I see it has, from the way the screws were rusted in,” replied Nyoda. “But why was it put up?”
“Dat shutter’s bin dere twenty-five years,” reiterated the old man solemnly, still looking at it in a half-fascinated, half-apprehensive way.
“Yes, yes,” said Nyoda, trying to control her impatience. “But why has it been there all this time? Why did Uncle Jasper put it up?”
Hercules scratched his head again, and replaced his pipe in its original position. “I disremember, Mis’ ’Lizbeth,” he said deprecatingly. “It’s bin so long since. My memry’s bin powerful bad lately, Mis’ ’Lizbeth. Seems like I caint remember hardly anything. It’s de mizry, Mis’ ’Lizbeth; it’s settled in my memry.” He carefully avoided her eyes.
“Please try to remember!” said Nyoda, trying hard to hold on to her patience, but morally certain that Hercules was trying to sidestep her questions. “Think, now. Twenty-five years ago Uncle Jasper put up an iron shutter to cover the most beautiful window in Carver House. Why did he do it?”
Nyoda turned so that she looked right into his face, and her compelling black eyes held his shifty gaze steady. There was something strangely magnetic about Nyoda’s eyes. People could avoid answering her questions as long as they did not look into her eyes, but once let her catch your gaze, and things she wanted to know had a habit of coming out of their own accord. Hercules seemed to be on the point of speaking; he cleared his throat nervously and shifted the pipe once more. Nyoda cast a triumphant glance at Sherry. In that instant Hercules shifted his gaze from her face and met another pair of eyes, eyes that seemed to look at him accusingly, and sent a chill running down his spine. These were none other than the eyes of Uncle Jasper, who, hanging in his frame on the study wall, seemed to be looking straight at him, in the way that eyes in pictures have. When Nyoda glanced back at Hercules he was staring uneasily at Uncle Jasper’s picture and there was a guilty look about him as if he had been caught in a misdemeanor.
“I ’clare, I cain’t remember nothin’ ’bout why dat shutter was put up, Mis’ ’Lizbeth,” he said earnestly. “Come to think on it now, Marse Jasper ain’t never told me why he want it put up,” he continued triumphantly. “He just say, ‘Herc’les, put up dat shutter,’ and he ain’t ever say why. I axed him, ‘Marse Jasper, what for you puttin’ up dat shutter over dat window?’ and he say, ‘Herc’les, you put up dat shutter and mind your business. I ain’t tellin’ why I wants it put up; I jest wants it put up, dat’s all.’ No’m, Mis’ ’Lizbeth, I’s often wondered myself about dat shutter, but I never found out nothin’.”
He glanced up at Uncle Jasper’s picture as though expecting some token of approval from the stern, grim face.
Nyoda saw it was no use trying to get anything out of Hercules. Either he really did not know anything, or he would not tell.