"It will be best to telegraph. Stapleton is forty miles distant, and it is doubtful if a letter would reach there in time."
"If you will write the telegram, Walter, I'll see that it's sent right off."
"I won't trouble you, Mr. Edson; you will have enough to attend to, and I can send Richard to the telegraph office, or go myself. I shall feel better for the exercise."
"Very well, Walter, I will do whatever else is necessary."
CHAPTER IV. JACOB DRUMMOND, OF STAPLETON.
Jacob Drummond kept a dry-goods store in the village of Stapleton. As the village was of considerable size, and he had no competitors, he drove a flourishing trade, and had already acquired quite a comfortable property. In fact, even had he been less favorably situated, he was pretty sure to thrive. He knew how to save money better, even, than to earn it, being considered, and with justice, a very mean man. He carried his meanness not only into his business, but into his household, and there was not a poor mechanic in Stapleton, and scarcely a poor laborer, who did not live better than Mr. Drummond, who was the rich man of the place.
No one, to look at Jacob Drummond, would have been likely to mistake his character. All the lines of his face, the expression of his thin lips, his cold gray eyes, all bespoke his meanness. Poor Mrs. Drummond, his wife, could have testified to it, had she dared; but in this house, at least, the husband was master, and she dared not express the opinions she secretly entertained of the man to whom she was bound for life.
At five o'clock on the afternoon of the day after Mr. Conrad's death, Mr. Drummond entered the house, which was on the opposite side of the street from the store.