"No, she didn't. But I found it out. Even if my own eyes are not as young as they were, I can see things that are right under my nose. Edith said she had a headache and would have to go to her room instead of playing cribbage with me. So I had to play solitaire, and I don't like to play solitaire of an evening. When I was young the evening was always the time for society, and I'm not so old that I want to be poked off in a corner to play solitaire. So I went to her room about ten o'clock to see if her head was better. We could have had a game of cribbage yet. Well, she wasn't there. She had gone out without saying a word to me. And while I was looking around she came in by the side door and came up the back stairs. I asked her where in the world she had been at that time of the night, and she never answered,--just went in to her room and locked the door. Now, do you think that is a proper way for a young woman to treat her elders? When I was young, we didn't dare to treat our elders in that way."
"I am sure you didn't," said Lyon, soothingly.
"And do you think it was proper for her to be out so late at night without saying anything to anyone in the house?"
"I am sure Miss Wolcott will be worried if you stay out so long," said Lyon, evasively. "She'll blame me for keeping you talking. Good-by. I am very glad to have met you. Some evening you must let me come and play a game of cribbage with you."
He turned to leave him, and then, with a sudden second thought, he came back. "Tell Miss Wolcott that I fell in with you, and that we had a pleasant chat," he said.
He had sufficient confidence in Miss Wolcott's discretion by this time to feel sure the message would set her to investigating the nature of the conversation, and possibly she would know how to sequestrate or suppress her garrulous relative until the peculiar circumstances of that evening should have faded out of his memory. The circumstances were so peculiar that Lyon could not help feeling it was fortunate that he, and not some police officer for instance, had received the old gentleman's confidences.
[CHAPTER V]
Lyon went straight to the jail to report to Lawrence. He had little difficulty in securing admittance, for the sheriff was sufficiently pliable and Lawrence sufficiently important to permit a softening of the rigors of prison discipline in his case. His arrest might, indeed, be considered merely a detention on suspicion until the Grand Jury had formally indicted him, and the sheriff had evidently considered that his duty was filled by ensuring his safety, without undue severity. The room was guarded without and barred within, but in itself it was more an austerely furnished bedroom than a cell, and Lawrence had more the air of a host receiving his guests than a prisoner. That, however, was Lawrence's way. It would have taken more than a stone wall and a locked door to force humiliation upon him. He tossed circumstances aside like impertinent meddlers, and scarcely condescended to be aware of their futile attempts to hamper him.
At the moment he was in consultation with his attorney, Howell,--or, rather, Howell was trying to hold a consultation with him, and, judging by his looks, not very successfully.
"It is unfortunate that your memory should be so curiously unequal," Howell said drily, as Lyon entered.