“She’s out. It’s her night off. She was all dressed up in her best bib and tucker and so I judged she was goin’ somewheres. I asked her where, but she never said nothin’, made believe she didn’t hear me. Don’t make much odds; I can ’most generally guess a riddle when I’ve got the answer aforehand. There’s an Odd Fellers’ ball over to Bayport to-night and that Georgie D.’s home from fishin’, so I cal’late—”
Townsend interrupted. “All right, all right,” he put in, gruffly. “I don’t care where she’s gone. Pull those curtains, will you, Nabby.”
“I was just a-goin’ to.... Say, Cap’n Townsend, don’t you think it’s kind of funny the way that woman’s husband is actin’—that Watertown woman’s, I mean? He says he wan’t to home the night she was murdered but he don’t say where he was. Now, ’cordin’ to what I read in yesterday’s Advertiser—”
“All right, all right! Pull those curtains.... Here! Wait a minute. Where’s Varunas?”
“He’s out to the barn, same as he usually is, I guess likely. He spends more time with them horses than he does with me, I know that. I say to him sometimes, I say: ‘Anybody’d think a horse could talk the way you keep company with ’em. Seems as if you liked to be with critters that can’t talk.’”
“Perhaps he does—for a change. Well, if he comes in tell him I want to see him. You can call me when supper’s ready. Now, if you’ll pull those curtains—”
The curtains were snatched together with a jerk and a rattle of rings on the pole. From behind them sounded the click of dishes and the jingle of silver. Foster Townsend sank back into the leather chair. His cigar had gone out, but he did not relight it. He sat there, gazing at nothing in particular, a gloomy frown upon his face.
The door leading from the rear of the front hall opened just a crack. Through the crack came a whisper in a hoarse masculine voice.
“Cap’n Foster!” whispered the voice. “Cap’n Foster!... Ssst! Look here!”
Townsend turned, looked and saw a hand with a beckoning forefinger thrust from behind the door. He recognized the hand and lifting his big body from the chair, walked slowly across the room.