"It would appear so, sir. He seems to have made himself very comfortable, too. As you see, the furniture is not at all bad, and nearly everything is just as he left it."
I must confess to being interested. The thought of a man coming to this place and building a house for himself and living there without companionship of any sort appealed to me. I wondered how he spent his days and nights.
"Let me have a look around the place," I said, rising from the chair. "I want to see what rooms it contains."
"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," was Simpson's reply.
The room in which I had been sitting was about fifteen feet square—it might be a little more—and looked out upon the veranda, beyond which stretched the great Atlantic. It was comfortably furnished, and possessed an old-fashioned fireplace, evidently intended for logs of wood, and revealed the fact that the builder was not only ingenious in the matter of house-building, but that he possessed a good deal of taste. The whole apartment was carefully match-boarded, and was, as I said, snug and comfortable.
"This, sir, is the bedroom," said Simpson, opening the door at the end of the living apartment.
It was much smaller than the other, but quite big enough for a single bed, together with the simple necessities of a man living alone.
"And did he die here?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; no, sir—that is—I don't know, sir."
"What do you mean, Simpson?"