"From Dorothy, partially, and in part from my own investigations."
"Dorothy didn't go back on the boy like that?" The man was hurt by the thought.
"Not at all. She tried to shield him. I came to Rockdale on her account, to try to discover if there is anyone else who might have had a motive for the crime."
Durgin pulled the sliver of wood to shreds with his teeth.
"I don't think Foster would have done it," he said, concealing the pain in his breast. "He's been wild. I've lost all patience with his ways of livin', but Uncle John was never afraid of Foster, though he was of Hiram Cleave."
"What's that?" said Garrison, instantly, alive to a possible factor in the case. "Do you mean there was a man Mr. Hardy was afraid of—Hiram what?"
"He never wanted me to tell of that," said Durgin in his heavy manner. "He wasn't a coward; he said so, and I know it's true, but he had a fear of Cleave."
"Now that's just exactly what I've got to know!" said Garrison. "Man alive, if you wish to help me clear your brother, you've got to give me all the facts you can think of concerning Mr. Hardy, his enemies, and everything else in the case! What sort of a man is this Cleave?"
"A short, middle-aged man," drawled Durgin deliberately. "I never saw him but once."
"What was the cause of enmity between him and Hardy, do you know?"