“Oh, I had been down to the shanty—to the studio. I had something there to attend to. My own horse is at the livery stable and I was walking toward the stable when I saw the span standing by the side of the road. I went over and looked.”
“Beside what road? The stable is at the corner of the lower road, and your studio is on that road. If you were coming—Bob, were the span and—and Seymour on that road? Was that where it happened?”
“I mustn’t stay. They need you, I know. Good-night.”
“But, Bob, how could he have been away down on the lower road? With Uncle Foster’s horses? Why—Bob!”
But he was hurrying to the gate. She stood for a moment, looking after him. Then she closed the door and hastened up the stairs.
At Harniss breakfast tables that morning the performance of “Pinafore” at the town hall was the topic of discussion. By dinner time, however, “Pinafore” was forgotten entirely, for a new sensation had pushed it to the background and taken its place in the limelight. Seymour Covell, the rich young fellow from Chicago, Foster Townsend’s guest, the one to whom so many people were referring as “Esther Townsend’s new beau,” had met with an accident. One of the Townsend horses, one of the famous span, had kicked him in the head, or the ribs, or somewhere—had kicked him, anyhow—and he was dead, or dying, or sure to die before long. And Captain Foster had said— No, it was Varunas Gifford who said it— Or Nabby— Well, at any rate—and so on.
Before the day ended all the guessing and surmising had simmered down to a few unquestioned facts. Seymour Covell had been kicked by a Townsend horse, he was unconscious, had remained so ever since it happened, and Doctor Bailey, and the other doctors who had been summoned by telegraph from Boston, were very much worried about him and were considering taking him to a big Boston hospital where they might have to perform an operation. Oh, yes! and it was Bob Griffin, Elisha Cook’s grandson from Denboro, who had found him dying by the side of the road, had lifted him, “all alone by himself, just think of it!” into the two-seater and driven him home to the mansion.
So much was sure and certain, but there was so much that was uncertain—and curious. No one seemed to know just where the accident happened. Covell had been almost the last to leave the town hall. The very last, except Asa Bloomer, the janitor, so it was said. And that was just before midnight. Now some one had been told by some one, who had been told by Captain Ben Snow, who got it from Foster Townsend himself, that Bob did not bring Seymour Covell home until after two in the morning. Where had Covell been all this time? It was scarcely possible that he had lain unconscious beside the main road for two hours, without either the span or the two-seater or himself having been seen by any one. “Why, Asa Bloomer never left that hall until after one and then he walked right straight up the main road. He never saw nothing out of the way, says so himself, he does.”
And it was particularly strange that Bob Griffin should have been the one to find the injured man. Several people had seen Bob at the rear of the hall during the opera. Where had he been from eleven until almost two? Queer enough that he and Covell could drop out of sight so completely. Griffin—witness the testimony of the livery stable keeper—had left the Cook horse and buggy at the stable; they were there at twelve-thirty when the stableman went to bed, leaving the door unlocked as was his custom. In the morning they were gone, so Griffin must have come for them some time or other.
Another day and there were new rumors, queerer still. Bob was located and interviewed. “He was down there, in that shanty of Tobe Eldridge’s, paintin’ those picture things of his just as if nothin’ had happened.” At least a dozen Harniss citizens had dropped in to ask questions. They were given little satisfaction. Griffin told them only the barest details. He furnished the answer to the puzzle concerning his whereabouts between the hours of eleven and one-thirty by saying that he had spent them in that very studio. He happened to remember something he had left there; he was rather vague about this. Walking to the village he had noticed the Townsend equipage by the roadside. “Where?” “Oh, up by the corner.” He had found Covell lying stunned and bleeding, and had taken him home. Then he went back to the stable and drove his own horse to Denboro.