“No.”
“Have you?”
“Not I.”
“What’s Daly going to do about it?”
“His idea is to hunt in all the likely places near at hand on the chance of finding them. He says that they can’t be far away, because Mr. Moor was such a short time gone; only half an hour.”
“That’s very true, but, without he has something to guide him in his search, it’ll be like hunting for a needle in a hay-stack.”
“Have you any notion about it, Tom?”
“Not yet,” said Tom; “let me think.” He buried his face in his hands, and sat for a long time without moving. At last, he opened the note that Daly had sent him, and looked at it again. Presently he spoke:
“Now, Will, let’s start from the time that he was supposed to have struck the blow, and let’s trace him as well as we can. After he had struck Isaac down, and saw that he had killed him, and also saw that there were signs upon him what might point to his having done the deed, he wouldn’t go out either into the turnpike or the mill road, for he would be afraid of some one meeting him. He would go into the woods, and would hide there until dark. He must have suffered horribly in the woods at night, with the thought of what he had done fresh upon his heart—of course, it would unfit him for any cool and collected thinking, and therefore we have an advantage over him. At last he comes home. Try to put yourself in his place, and conceive of the terrible state of mind that he must have been in at the time. There would be blood upon his clothes, and his first thought would be to get rid of them as soon as possible. If he had been cool, he would have waited until the next day, but he did not think of any such thing at the time. ‘Where shall I hide them?’ he would say to himself; ‘not at home, not about the house, for who knows how soon they may be found?’ Then he would go over a number of places in his mind. He would not be collected enough to think of some out-of-the-way spot; he would think of some place that he had seen before, and that would be remarkable enough for him to remember it, even at such a moment. Now, let’s see what he did, according to that which the servant girl told Daly. He doesn’t see the servant girl when he first comes into the house, but, after he had stuffed his clothes into a carpet-bag, and had come down stairs again, he meets her face to face, and shows very plainly how much the sight of her has disturbed him. He tells her sharply enough for her to remember that he don’t want any supper. The next minute the thought comes to him that she’ll think his actions very strange, so he turns around and gives her an explanation of his movements, such as he would never think of doing in an ordinary case. He tells her that he is going to Henry Sharpley’s, on business. Without I’m mistaken, he made a blunder there that will give help to us. So far we can follow him tolerably well. Now, we have a gape of half an hour, and that gape we’ve got to fill up.”
“That’s just it,” said Will.