Harniss was beginning to talk, of course. Neighbors had seen Griffin entering the yard of the mansion evening after evening. Curious eyes had remained open later than was their custom to note the hour at which he left that yard. And they were noting that, whereas the said hour was in the beginning as early as nine-thirty, it was now ten-thirty or, on one occasion, close to eleven. “What is Cap’n Foster thinking about?” people wanted to know. “Elisha Cook’s grandson coming to that house! Doesn’t the Cap’n realize what is going on? If he don’t somebody ought to tell him.”
Nobody did tell him; no one would have dared. Various reasons for his permitting the visits were suggested. For the most part these reasons were connected with the lawsuit. Perhaps Griffin had quarreled with his grandfather. That might be why he had hired Tobias Eldridge’s shanty and was spending his days there instead of in Denboro, where he belonged. Perhaps he and Elisha Cook had had a row and Bob had deserted to the enemy. He might be giving Townsend inside information which would help the latter and his lawyers. Perhaps Townsend had bought the boy off. He had money enough to buy anybody or anything, if he cared to use it.
Millard Fillmore Clark, as an “in-law” and a possible though but remotely possible, source of information was questioned. Mr. Clark’s replies to all queries were non-committal and dignified. One gathered that he knew a great deal but was under oath to reveal nothing.
“You let us alone,” he said, loftily, “We ’tend to our business and we generally know what that business is. Wait a little spell. Just wait. Then I guess you’ll see what you do see.”
The few who dared drop a hint to Reliance left unsatisfied. Mrs. Wheeler, who boasted that she made it a point to give her custom to the “native tradespeople” whenever possible, was one of these few. She had graciously permitted the Clark-Makepeace millinery shop to fashion for her what she called a “garden hat,” and she dropped in at the room in the rear of the post office building ostensibly to see how the fashioning was progressing. After the usual preliminaries of weather, health and church matters had been touched upon, she broached another subject.
“I hear Captain Townsend’s attractive niece has developed a new talent,” she observed, with a smile. “I always supposed music was her specialty. Now I understand she has taken up painting.”
Reliance looked up from the garden hat, which was in her lap. Then she looked down again.
“Has she?” she asked, calmly. “I didn’t know it.”
Mrs. Wheeler smiled once more. “So they say,” she affirmed. “She has developed a fondness for art.”
“Is that so.... Don’t you think the bow would look better on the side than right in front, Mrs. Wheeler?”