“I see,” she said slowly. “You poor child! Yes, yes, I see. You must have had a dreadful time the last few days. I will tell you. I learned a lot last night before I went to bed. This morning I made it my business to learn the rest. Esther, where do you suppose I’ve been—just now, before I came here?”
“Why—I don’t know.”
“I guess you don’t. And very few others, I hope. I have been away down to Henry Campton’s house on the lower road. I went there to see that girl of his—that Carrie.”
Esther stared in utter amazement. “You went to see Carrie Campton?” she repeated. “Why?”
“Because I judged she could fit in the pieces of the puzzle I was trying to work out. And that is what she did before she and I finished. Wait a minute, Esther. Yes, she fitted in the last pieces, but the first ones came from somebody else. You have heard the story that has been going around—that about some man or other who saw Covell and Griffin that night? But of course you have. Abbie Makepeace told me she was kind enough to repeat it to you. Well, I told her one or two things when I learned what she had done. She scarcely speaks to me now, but that is a great deal harder trial for her than it is for me. Esther, I know now who that man was. He—oh dear! I hate to tell you his name. I am ashamed to.”
Esther smiled, faintly. “Perhaps you don’t need to,” she said. “It was Uncle Millard, wasn’t it?”
And now it was Miss Clark who was amazed.
“My soul!” she gasped. “How did you know that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I guessed it. It came to me last night, while I was lying awake, thinking. I knew—Nabby told me—that he had been here to see Uncle Foster several times on what he called important business. And Varunas heard a little of what he said to uncle on the station platform yesterday. And this ‘business’ of his was so important that Uncle Foster took him as far as Denboro on the train in order to hear it. I wondered—and wondered—and then—I guessed.”
“My—my—my! Well,” with a sigh, “you guessed right. I don’t think I should have guessed. For one thing I wouldn’t have believed the scamp could keep a secret from me so long— Humph! I rather think he is sorry he kept this one. And he’ll be sorrier still before I get through with him. Yes, he was the man.... And now, dearie, I want you to sit down in that chair, and just listen, and be a brave girl, while I tell you the whole story, every last scrap of it.”